The Commerce Department is taking its biggest step yet toward onshoring semiconductor manufacturing with a historic $19.5 billion funding deal with Intel, which the Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor giant plans to use for four new production facilities across the country. President Biden signed the $53 billion CHIPS and Science Act into law in August 2022, committing to ensure that the U.S. could design and manufacture the advanced computer chips that power everything from lawnmowers to supercomputers on its own soil...
SPARK Microsystems is proudly headquartered in Montreal, and we celebrate our roots here! More importantly, we take care to help cultivate these roots. Today, our local technology ecosystem is blossoming. The semiconductor business opportunity in Canada continues to flourish, thanks in large part to our talented and enthusiastic peers and partners in the Canadian tech, academic and investor communities. We share great aspirations to make Canada’s tech sector among the world’s great technology hubs.
On a brisk day in Ottawa, the wheels of progress turned within the walls of a summit that could very well dictate the future trajectory of Canada’s role in the global semiconductor landscape. February 6, 2024, marked a significant milestone as the Canadian Semiconductor Council hosted its inaugural Semiconductor Summit, drawing together a diverse collective of 150 participants across government, academia, and businesses.
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked many economies to address the disruptions caused throughout the global semiconductor supply chain. Whether the result of so-called "security nationalism," unsettled competitive trading regimes, or warfare destabilization, we are experiencing a new competitive era in semiconductor manufacturing. Canada has become a major participant in those ongoing reshoring recalibrations...
The chip business in Canada is poised for a renaissance—one that may well depend on alliances in the United States, experts told EE Times. The country north of the 49th parallel has had a semiconductor industry for decades, but there’s been a gap in its growth: Due, in part, to the failure of a stalwart telecom giant, globalization and outsourcing to other parts of the world, its expansion hit a bump at the start of the millennium.
The brain drain to the U.S. has always been a challenge for the Canadian tech sector at large: Both homegrown and international chip companies looking to scale up in Canada are likely to face some headwinds as they try to hire the needed talent. Experts told EE Times that Canada is making many of the right moves with a steady pipeline of talent coming out of its universities who can staff the sector, which is heavily focused on R&D and design, driven in part by the AI boom.
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