Peter Holland, vice president of global supply chain at Lam Research, told CNA that those components are currently sourced from several locations, including the United States, South Korea, China and Malaysia.
DIVERSIFYING, NOT DECOUPLING
Semiconductors power everything from smartphones and cars to telecom networks and defence equipment, making resilient supply chains increasingly important, said experts.
Speaking at Semicon India 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said new and reliable manufacturing hubs such as India were increasingly important “at a time when supply chains are being weaponised”.
Recent disruptions have highlighted those vulnerabilities, from a July earthquake that halted chip production in Japan to Chinese export controls on critical semiconductor materials in 2023 and 2024.
But resilience does not mean severing ties with established semiconductor economies, industry experts said.
Japan, for instance, has lost ground to countries such as South Korea in some chips, but remains a key supplier of specialised equipment and materials, Invest India CEO and former Intel India head Nivruti Rai told CNA.
“They retained the choke points,” Rai said, adding that even global semiconductor giants such as South Korea’s SK Hynix and Taiwan’s TSMC depend on Japanese suppliers.
