Commentary
It was only six days before the 2016 American presidential election that the Obama administration finally had a public “aha” moment on the vital importance of semiconductors to the way we live now.
The moment came when then-commerce secretary Penny Pritzker gave a speech in Washington in which she declared it was “imperative that semiconductor technology remains a central feature of American ingenuity and a driver of our economic growth.” She went on to explain the seriousness of the battle over semiconductors with China.
For the tech-minded, especially Silicon Valley veterans, the speech was long overdue. But, in the White House’s defence, the vast majority of policy analysts had failed to appreciate the issue….