A group of U.S. chip companies on Thursday sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to provide “substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing” as part of his economic recovery and infrastructure plans. The chief executives of major U.S. firms such as Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Micron Technology Inc., and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. signed onto the letter. It comes as a global chip shortage has idled factory lines at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co, with executives at the automakers predicting billions in lost profit. Tight chip supplies have even made it hard for consumers to buy popular gaming consoles such as Microsoft Corp’s Xbox and Sony Corp’s Playstation. The missing chips are mostly manufactured in countries such as Taiwan and South Korea, which have come to dominate the industry. The letter, sent by the Semiconductor Industry Association, said that the U.S. share of semiconductor manufacturing …