| I'm not an industry analyst, but the packaging issue seems a bit overblown. Yes, packaging for this kind of high density design as an iPhone is very specialized, but it does not contain the precious IP and the security concerns it carries. Also, iPhones and any costumer electronics at this level of complexity and scale will be assembled in China for the foreseeable future, and this is more like a stop in the middle of a journey than a round-trip. Maybe this website is too Apple-focused, or maybe I'm missing something, but "older" technology makes the bulk of the ICs manufactured and is much more strategic than the latest Instagram filter accelerator processor. Maybe by value bleeding-edge nodes are bigger, but by volume they are not even close. By the way, I won't miss if my car comes without infotainment with the latest GPU, but I surely hope the ABS processors are there. Or even the shitty microcontroller that every single button seems to hide nowadays. And for most applications that do not require incredibly high density, there are plenty of packaging plants in the US (I google and got this [1] as a first result. Sorry, not an analyst). And even the advanced packaging seems to be getting attention that this article does not acknowledge [2]. [1] https://www.globalspec.com/local/4218/C_US
[2] https://semiengineering.com/expanding-advanced-packaging-pro... |