Chip War without Soldiers

The success of countries in the future will depend on their ability to produce skilled chip designers who can create advanced AI chips for winning the Chip War.

In response, many countries are building a semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem

to balance the global semiconductor supply chain and overcome supply chain disruptions experienced during the pandemic.

This article aims to inspire electrical and electronics engineers to lead the semiconductor industry as the next generation of chip designers,

and encourage VLSI Design companies to upskill and support their workforce for long-term career development.

To build advanced fabs for their future, countries are funding and collaborating with global chip manufacturing companies.

The improvements in chip design for AI will focus on speeding up the movement of data in and out of memory with increased power and more efficient memory systems.

Higher technology nodes are needed to fabricate complex SoCs, cutting-edge AI chips that integrate complex neural engines and memories using new technologies like Chiplets.

The semiconductor industry started with making IC with four transistors and has evolved to produce complex SoCs with 100s of billions of transistors.

Defense departments and institutes like DARPA in the US funded inventing chip technologies

and introduced the concept of using chips to create advanced defense technologies like next-gen missile guiding systems.

The chip manufacturing ecosystem was built with a supply chain spread across Taiwan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, and other countries, beyond the US.

The global semiconductor industry generates yearly revenue of 500+ billion USDs and is expected to reach 1 trillion USD by 2030.

ARM is still the most successful IP company in the semiconductor industry, with hundreds of billions of electronic devices shipped with ARM cores.