Apple Inc has been lobbying the US government on tax breaks to support domestic chip production, suggesting the iPhone maker is keen to move more of its supply chain to the US.
In second and third-quarter disclosure reports, the company said that it lobbied officials from the US Department of the Treasury, Congress and the White House on tax topics including “issues related to tax credits for domestic semiconductor production.”
Since releasing its first custom processor in 2010, chips have become a major performance differentiator for Apple.
The company designs some of these components in house, but outsources production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電).
Many other parts for Apple devices are made in China. That has exposed the company to tariffs and other risks from a trade dispute between the US and China. Taiwan, where TSMC is based, has also become an increasing focus of geopolitical tension between China and the US.
Apple’s recent lobbying coincides with a push by the company and its partners to move some production away from China and even back to the US in a few cases.
There is also a broader effort by the US semiconductor industry to get government support for increased domestic production.
Apple’s US lobbying efforts are now mostly led by company veteran Tim Powderly, who was promoted around the time Cynthia Hogan, Apple’s prior top US lobbyist, left to join former US vice president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Earlier this year, TSMC said that it would build a US$12 billion chip plant in Arizona, and the company has been lobbying officials there for tax breaks.
In 2013, Apple started making a low-volume Mac Pro computer in the US.
Last year, it started using the same plant in Texas to conduct final assembly for a new version. That decision came after the company was granted tariff breaks.
Apple also sources components from several chipmakers that build some of their products in the US, including Broadcom Inc and Texas Instruments Inc.
Apple also has started using Qualcomm Inc again for iPhone modems, and the San Diego, California-based chipmaker builds some products domestically via production partner GlobalFoundries Inc.
Intel Corp, the current manufacturer of Mac’s main processors, builds some of its chips in the US.
However, when Apple moves to its own Mac chips next month, that would mean shifting production of that component to Taiwan.
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday thanked memory chipmaker Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra for his trust and continued investment in Taiwan, in a rare public meeting with a senior foreign tech executive. It is very unusual for Taiwan’s president to have publicized meetings with senior foreign tech executives, despite the nation being home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), whose chips help to power the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Lai thanked Mehrotra for “showing trust and support for Taiwan” in a video released by the Presidential Office. “I want to thank Micron for its long-term