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Interest in photonic chips is expanding at lightning speed. The market for silicon photonics is expected to quintuple from 2020 ($516 million) to 2025 — reaching $2.6 billion, according to Gartner. In fact, speed is one of the three factors driving this accelerated growth. 

Photonic chips transmit signals with light instead of electricity. The advantage of photonics over electronics is that light is faster and more functional over large bandwidths. The most common method of deploying photonics in chip design currently is silicon photonics, which pairs photonic architecture with traditional circuits in a single chip.

When it comes to the global race in the semiconductor industry, it’s an ongoing competition among the three biggest players — Japan, China, and the United States. Here’s an overview of where they stand today:

Japan struggles to maintain its position

In August of 2021, news outlets reported that Japan was worried it could be left behind as the U.S. chip industry spent billions to gain an edge in an ongoing trade war with China. Japan, which once dominated in the semiconductor industry, worried it would be squeezed out. Its share of global chip manufacturing had fallen from a half to a tenth as it lost customers to less expensive rivals and lost ground with a lack of cutting-edge processes in the production of silicon wafers, chemical films, and machinery, according to Japan’s industry ministry.

On July 1^st, Kelley Blue Book asked the question on everyone’s mind: Is the end of the chip shortage in sight? Then it answered its own question with cautious optimism: yes, automotive chip production is catching up— slowly but surely. 

After months of dire reports predicting that the automotive chip crises could extend through 2022 and even into early 2023, there is now good news for automakers and their customers. Several automakers have reported that they are starting to feel the shortages easing up and their chip supply stabilizing.

In April 2022, the number of job openings in the U.S. decreased to 11.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ June 2022 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary. However, the number of employees who quit their jobs in April remained steady at 4.4 million. 

Today’s organizations are looking for innovative ways to stem the flow of employee resignations and the subsequent loss of valuable skills. That’s why a growing number of organizations are turning to upskilling or reskilling their workforce. 

Upskilling employees has become a go-to strategy for many companies looking for a proactive approach to overcoming the persistent skills shortage and tight labor marketplace. Upskilling and reskilling an existing workforce yields several benefits, but in the current market, one of its most important functions is the retention of existing employees.

Despite the many reports that have painted a “doom and gloom” picture of the semiconductor industry due to chip shortages and hiring challenges, many companies around the world are not slowing down their growth plans. In fact, global semiconductor billings grew 5% year-over-year to $24.7 billion in the first quarter of 2022, as reported by SEMI in Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.

“Year-over-year first quarter equipment revenue growth is in sync with positive forecasts for 2022 as the semiconductor industry continues its robust increase of fab capacity,” said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. “North America and Europe logged healthy quarter-over-quarter rises in equipment spending as they intensify efforts to bolster domestic chipmaking.”

In the second quarter of this year, several businesses announced their growth plans in locations around the world — from Connecticut to Taiwan. Here is an overview of just a few of the many initiatives underway in the semiconductor industry in Q2 2022.

Tracking the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage and labor challenge is not for the weak of heart. It’s a constant barrage of both positive and negative reports. To illustrate the volatility of the semiconductor industry at this point in time, we tracked the latest updates for one week in the second quarter of 2022 — May 10 to 17. Here are snapshots of the reports we found on the challenges, progress, and solutions about the chip and labor shortages.

Early in the pandemic, the automotive industry slowed production due to lower demand for new vehicles. But once they were ready to ramp back up, the manufacturers were surprised to find a semiconductor chip shortage was derailing their production capabilities and threatening to prolong their recovery cycle.

Job postings for electrical engineers in the U.S. semiconductor industry grew 78% from 2020 to 2021 — more than three times faster than growth for electrical engineers overall. What’s more, the U.S. semiconductor industry will need between 70,000 and 90,000 new workers by 2025 to meet the most critical workforce needs, reported Eightfold.ai. 

There are many strategies being aimed at helping the industry overcome today’s unrelenting labor crisis. But will any of them work?

By now, the world is fully aware of the impact of the semiconductor chip shortage — the industry, businesses, and the economy have taken enormous hits. But there is another looming concern that industry leaders say threatens the U.S. semiconductor industry — national security. 

The problem, as many see it, is that the U.S. has become too dependent on chip manufacturing in Asia. Both the recent war in Ukraine and long-brewing tensions between countries in close proximity to China are making national security an increasingly urgent issue.