The report shows that the top semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the United States all have, are building or invest in a large amount of offshore capacity. Applied Materials (AMAT)'s Singapore factory accounts for about 50% of its total production capacity, and from 2005 to 2020, its overseas factory area increased from 13% to 40%. Lam Semiconductor (Lam) announced in 2020 the construction of its largest factory in Malaysia. KLA has accelerated its overseas layout since 2005. By 2020, the proportion of its overseas factories will increase from 0 to 67%.
Although, according to the United Nations commodity trade statistics, semiconductor equipment exported from the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands still accounts for the vast majority of the world, and has shown an increasing trend in the past five years. However, considering that the export data is relatively delayed relative to the production capacity layout, in the context of the US strengthening unilateral export controls on Chinese semiconductors, the possibility that US semiconductor equipment manufacturers will accelerate the deployment of offshore production cannot be ruled out. In fact, top U.S. equipment makers have all expressed willingness to move production overseas in response to new unilateral export controls.
I predicted that this would happen, Americans semiconductor companies are moving their manufacturing and R&D overseas to avoid stringent export controls, have my doubts that U.S. and their allies will agree to create a export framework for anything except the cutting edge and much less now the China is becoming REALLY good at making their own equipment, they are planning to expand the development-production of patterning tools and with Japanese companies trying to regain lost market share.
