COVID-19’s impact on the global economy introduced major supply chain shortages, hitting silicon wafer manufacturers particularly hard. Silicon wafers chips are a small slice of semi-conductors, a vital tech component inside all complex electronics from cell phones to cruise missiles. They also require critical minerals and advanced processing techniques to produce, two areas where the United States is lagging behind China and other Asian competitors. Today, the gap between semiconductor chip order and delivery times range between 18 weeks and 6 months, whereas pre-pandemic wait times hovered around 12 weeks.
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