The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is exploring a national initiative to boost the British semiconductor industry. 

Looking into the feasibility of new national initiatives to strengthen the semiconductor sector, the research aims to unlock the full potential of British microchip businesses.

The strategy hopes to also support job and skills growth in the UK’s domestic industry and ensure a reliable supply of semiconductors despite global shortages. 

Semiconductors underpin almost every electronic device, and can be altered to meet the electrical needs of a circuit or device, making them highly valuable. 

Digital Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “We rely on semiconductors – they are in everything from our smartphones, kitchen appliances, and cars all the way through to the supercomputers that support our weather reporting, energy sector and countless other areas of our economy.”

The study will look at whether better access to prototyping and manufacturing facilities for chip firms is needed to tackle barriers to innovation and grow the industry.

It will also cover opportunities to make specialist software tools more available for start-ups and ways to develop cutting-edge packaging processes, the point in the supply chain where chips are prepared for use.

The UK’s semiconductor industry has expanded over the last decade, and has established strengths in chip design, research, and compound semiconductors. 

“In the UK we are leading the world in areas including design and research,” Donelan said. “We want to build on these successes and keep our semiconductor sector on the cutting edge.”

The study will focus on improvements in five key areas: industry coordination, open access manufacturing for compound semiconductors, silicon prototyping, advanced packaging, and intellectual property. 

Further, a semiconductor strategy is forthcoming, and the results of this feasibility will inform how best the UK can meet some of the ambitions it sets out. 

The chip shortage has affected economies around the world with countries relying on chips for nearly every electronic device. 

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The feasibility study hopes to allow the UK to not wholly rely on unreliable supply chains that are struggling to keep up with current demand. 

Other governments are also taking action to anticipate the increased demand for chips; the EU has launched the European Chip Act to better respond to faults in the supply chain, and the US has banned the export of some of its chip related technology. 

The study will attempt to model a national initiative for semiconductors and how this can be implemented to have the most positive impact on the industry in the UK. 

The research has a budget of up to £900,000, and this is just one of the many options under consideration in the full semiconductor strategy which will be published soon. 

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