CHIPS Act: Semiconductor Global Ecosystem and Supply-Chain Economic / Geopolitical Threats and Solutions
ABSTRACT
As COVID began to snarl global supply-chains in early 2020, the US Government launched a series of initiatives to assess the Economic and National Security threats for critical supply-chains. The Global Semiconductor ecosystem was identified as one of the top 5 needing a Risk/Threat assessment and to identify solutions to improve supply-chain resilience and health. As a Senior Advisor to Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, with decades of experience in managing global supply-chains as well as C-level expertise in the Semi industry, Ron Nussle led a cross-agency effort to assess the Global Semiconductor supply-chain vulnerabilities. The assessment included 5 segments of the Global Semi Supply-Chain: IDM/Design; Fabs; Semi Equipment; Assembly, Test & Packaging and Materials/Gases. Over 11,000 firms across these 5 segments were assessed and the solutions covered both US Government actions, specifically the CHIPS act and also included public-private partnerships to accelerate reshoring or nearshoring of critical Semi technologies, for example the TSMC, Samsung and Intel leading-edge fabs now under construction. The supply-chain risk assessment methodology followed commercial best-practices and the solutions-set can be applied by companies seeking to improve the resilience of their global supply-chains during the the turbulent geopolitical and macro-economic times in 2024 and beyond.
BIOGRAPHY
Ron is the Deputy Commissioner for Critical Global Supply-Chains for the Krach Institute of Tech Diplomacy. Ron is also the President/COO of New Hope Energy, which is currently building the largest of its kind in the world plant using its patented pyrolysis technology to enable the circular economy by transforming mixed plastic waste that would otherwise be destined for landfill or incineration into circular plastic feedstock. Ron has 35+ years of Operations, Supply-Chain and Engineering experience. He has held C-level positions at Startups and Fortune 500 firms in Semiconductor, Aerospace & Construction/EPC industries. Prior to New Hope, Ron was a Sr. Advisor to the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Management, where his role was to bring best-practices in Modular Design and Construction to improve the State Department’s embassy construction as well as co-project manager for CHIPS Act, providing SEMI global supply-chain ecosystem analysis and business case for legislation.
Previously, Ron spent a decade in the SemiConductor industry both as C-level executive building multi-$Billion Fabs in the US and also as the head of Global Supply-Chain & Operations at Lam Research. At Lam, he led a strategic Supply-Chain turn-around which improved Gross Margin from 34 to 52%. These efforts were rewarded by Wall-Street with a $3Billion increase in market cap and a 110% increase in share price. Ron has also worked as an Executive supply-chain and operations consultant to multiple SEMI members.