The Semiconductor Industry Association positions itself as the voice of the U.S. semiconductor industry. This is one of America's top export industries and a driver of American economic strength, national security and global competitiveness. Founded in 1977 by five microelectronics pioneers Wilfred Corrigan of Fairchild Semiconductor , Robert Noyce of Intel Corporation , Jerry Sanders of Advanced Micro Devices , Charles Sporck of National Semiconductor Corporation and John Welty of Motorola , SIA unites companies that account for 80 percent of America’s semiconductor production. Through this coalition, SIA seeks to strengthen US leadership of semiconductor design and manufacturing by working with Congress, the Administration and other key industry stakeholders to encourage policies and regulations that fuel innovation, propel business and drive international competition, and the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices , such as integrated circuits . It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconductor devices became a viable business. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over$481 billion, as of 2018. ] The semiconductor industry is in turn the driving force behind the wider electronics industry ,with annual power electronics sales of £135billion ($216 billion) as of 2011, [3] annual consumer electronics sales expected to reach$2.9 trillionby 2020, [4] tech industry sales expected to reach$5 trillionin 2019,and e-commerce with over$29 trillionin 2017. The most widely used semiconductor device is the MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor),which was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. MOSFET scaling and miniaturization has been the primary factor behind the rapid exponential growth of semiconductor technology since the 1960s.The MOSFET, which accounts for 99.9% of all transistors , is the driving force behind the semiconductor industry and the most widely manufactured device in history, [12] [13] with an estimated total of 13 sextillion (1.3 × 1022) MOSFETs having been manufactured between 1960 and 2018.
Industry Structure:
The industry is based on the foundry model , which consists of semiconductor fabrication plants foundries and integrated circuit design operations, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries. Some companies, known as integrated device manufacturers , both design and manufacture semiconductors. The foundry model has resulted in consolidation among foundries. As of 2021, only three firms are able to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors: TSMC of Taiwan, Samsung of South Korea, and Intel of the United States. [15] Part of this is due to the high capital costs of building foundries. TSMC's latest factory, capable of fabricating 3 nm process semiconductors and completed in 2020, cost $19.5 billion.
