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Business Daily: The race to secure semiconductor supply chains

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11/01/2024 GMT

The race to secure semiconductor supply chains

BBC World Service - Business Daily, The race to secure semiconductor supply chains

Nearly everything with an on-off switch needs chips - and more nations want to make them

Nearly everything with an on-off switch needs chips, but with one dominant manufacturer, supply chains are vulnerable.

Semiconductors hit the news during the Covid-19 pandemic, as issues with supply chains led to shortages of cars and soaring prices. 

Since then, geopolitical tensions have impacted the industry. 90% of the world's most advanced chips are made by TSMC in Taiwan. 
 
Now, countries all over the world are investing billions of dollars into the industry, so that manufacturing of these chips can happen in more places and alleviate some of the problems supply chains have faced in the last few years.  

In today’s episode, we visit a new semiconductor fabrication plant in the UK - the first to develop a low-cost, flexible semiconductor, as companies, and nations, race to diversity the industry. 

(Picture: Two workers in PPE inside the Pragmatic semiconductor plant in Durham, England. Credit: Pragmatic)

Produced and presented by Hannah Mullane

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