As the United States accelerates efforts to expand domestic semiconductor manufacturing through the CHIPS Act, much of the public discussion has centered on funding announcements and new fabrication plant construction.
What It Really Takes to Build and Scale Semiconductor Manufacturing in the United States
Brandon Hetherington, Editor | ManufacturingTomorrow
But behind the headlines lies a far more complex operational reality. Standing up an advanced semiconductor facility requires the coordination of precision engineering systems, utility infrastructure, supplier ecosystems, and a highly specialized workforce capable of supporting one of the most demanding manufacturing environments in the world.
Kaushik Krishnan, a licensed Professional Engineer and global manufacturing leader with experience at Apple and DuPont, has spent his career working at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, supply chain strategy, and industrial scale up. In this interview with ManufacturingTomorrow.com, he shares an operator’s perspective on what it actually takes to launch and sustain semiconductor production in the United States, the infrastructure and engineering challenges that often go underestimated, and the operational risks companies must manage as the industry works to translate policy momentum into long term manufacturing capability.
The CHIPS Act has generated significant momentum around U.S. semiconductor expansion. From an operator’s perspective, what does it actually take to stand up an advanced semiconductor facility beyond the policy announcements?
From an operator’s perspective, building an advanced semiconductor facility is less about announcing capital investment and more about orchestrating a highly complex manufacturing ecosystem. Semiconductor production requires extraordinary levels of precision, reliability, and contamination control, which means that a successful fab launch depends on synchronizing facility design, infrastructure readiness, supplier qualification, workforce capability, and process validation.
In my own work supporting advanced manufacturing environments, I’ve seen how critical it is to treat facility development as an integrated engineering system rather than simply a construction project. For example, when establishing domestic production capability for advanced semiconductor process chemicals, the challenge was not only building the manufacturing infrastructure but ensuring that ultra-clean blending systems, filtration technology, and contamination-control frameworks could reliably meet the purity standards required for semiconductor fabrication nodes below five nanometers.
What ultimately determines success is whether organizations can translate policy momentum into operational execution. Semiconductor facilities require a stable power infrastructure, ultra-pure water systems, precision chemical-handling capabilities, and highly specialized engineering talent. If any part of that system lags, it can delay qualification and production ramp significantly. The CHIPS Act has created the right policy framework, but the real test will be whether the United States can execute the engineering, supply chain, and workforce systems needed to sustain large-scale semiconductor manufacturing over time.
As a licensed professional engineer who has reviewed and approved complex engineering drawings, what are the most underestimated challenges in facility design approvals for semiconductor fabs in the United States?
One of the most underestimated challenges is the sheer complexity of coordinating design approvals across multiple technical disciplines while still preserving the contamination-control, safety, and reliability standards required for semiconductor manufacturing. In advanced fabs, design approval is not simply a permitting step; it is a risk-screening process for whether the facility can actually support stable, high-yield production.
As a licensed Professional Engineer who has reviewed and approved complex engineering drawings, I have seen that one of the biggest issues is integration risk between systems that are often designed in parallel: process piping, chemical distribution, filtration, HVAC, exhaust, water treatment, gas delivery, electrical redundancy, and safety systems. Each discipline may look acceptable on its own, but semiconductor manufacturing requires them to function as one coordinated system. If that integration is not engineered correctly, problems appear later during commissioning or production ramp, when fixes are much more expensive.
I often find the biggest integration risks lie at the intersection of mechanical systems and high-purity chemical distribution. For instance, my research and operational work in optimizing mechanical components for Post-CMP (PCMP) cleaning processes demonstrates how deeply interconnected these systems are. PCMP requires exceptionally tight tolerances for contamination and fluid dynamics. If the mechanical infrastructure delivering these highly sensitive cleaning chemistries isn't engineered flawlessly alongside the facility's water treatment and exhaust systems, defect rates inevitably spike. Something that passes code in a conventional industrial facility will completely fail in an ultra-clean PCMP environment. The most successful projects treat design approval not as a box-checking exercise , but as an integrated engineering strategy where mechanical and chemical disciplines function as one coordinated system.
There is also the challenge of approval speed versus engineering rigor. In periods of strong industrial momentum, organizations can feel pressure to accelerate schedules. But if design reviews are rushed, teams may overlook utility constraints, maintainability issues, process safety gaps, or long-lead infrastructure dependencies that later affect startup timelines and reliability. In my view, the most successful projects are the ones that treat design approval as a strategic manufacturing readiness step rather than a box-checking exercise.
Semiconductor manufacturing depends heavily on utility infrastructure, including water, power, and specialty gases. What practical constraints do you see at the infrastructure level that could slow down U.S. expansion efforts?
The biggest practical constraint is that semiconductor manufacturing requires utility infrastructure at a level of stability, purity, and redundancy that is much more demanding than most other industries. A fab does not just need water and power in a general sense; it needs highly reliable, tightly controlled utility systems that can support continuous production with minimal deviation.
Water is a major example. Semiconductor production depends on extremely high volumes of ultra-pure water, and that requires significant upstream treatment, recycling, storage, and waste management infrastructure. In regions where water availability is already constrained, expansion can become difficult unless utilities and local authorities plan capacity well in advance. Even when raw water is available, building the treatment and recovery systems to semiconductor standards takes time and capital.
Power infrastructure is another critical bottleneck. Advanced fabs require not only large power loads, but stable and redundant electrical systems with minimal disruption tolerance. Grid limitations, interconnection delays, and backup power design can all affect project timelines. In semiconductor manufacturing, even brief instability can have significant operational consequences, so reliability matters just as much as capacity.
Specialty gases and high-purity chemical distribution are equally important. These systems require safe storage, delivery, monitoring, and contamination control, often with long lead times for equipment and strict installation standards. In practice, one of the biggest infrastructure risks is not any single utility by itself, but the coordination of all of them. If power upgrades are delayed, water systems are undersized, or gas infrastructure is not synchronized with tool installation, the entire ramp can slip.
In my view, U.S. semiconductor expansion will move fastest where site selection, utility planning, and industrial infrastructure investment are treated as one integrated strategy rather than separate workstreams.
You have led global supply chain diversification initiatives at scale. How critical is supplier ecosystem development to the long-term success of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, and where are the current gaps?
Supplier ecosystem development is one of the most important factors in determining whether semiconductor manufacturing expansion becomes sustainable over the long term.
In my own work leading large-scale manufacturing diversification initiatives, I saw firsthand that building resilient production capacity requires more than just constructing facilities. It requires developing an ecosystem of qualified suppliers capable of meeting demanding engineering, quality, and compliance standards. In one major diversification effort, my team successfully qualified more than 20 suppliers and over 200 hardware components across newly established manufacturing ecosystems in multiple countries, enabling hundreds of millions of dollars in production capacity outside traditional manufacturing hubs.
Semiconductor manufacturing operates under similar dynamics. Even when fabrication facilities are built domestically, they still rely on complex networks of suppliers providing specialty materials, precision components, equipment support, and high-purity chemicals. If those supporting capabilities remain concentrated in other regions, the manufacturing system remains vulnerable to supply disruptions and long lead times.
One of the largest current gaps is the domestic depth of specialty materials and process chemicals. Establishing local manufacturing capability for these materials significantly strengthens supply chain resilience by reducing lead times and enabling closer collaboration between suppliers and fabrication facilities.
Over time, the countries that succeed in semiconductor manufacturing will be those that build strong supplier ecosystems alongside fabrication capacity, rather than treating them as separate challenges.
Workforce readiness is often cited as a bottleneck. From your experience across advanced manufacturing systems, what skills and capabilities are most urgently needed.
Workforce readiness is absolutely critical because semiconductor manufacturing requires highly specialized technical capabilities across engineering, operations, and infrastructure management.
From my experience working across advanced manufacturing environments, semiconductor expansion will require strong pipelines of process engineers, facilities engineers, equipment specialists, automation engineers, and highly skilled technicians who can support installation, commissioning, and a stable production ramp.
Another critical capability is cross-functional manufacturing leadership. Semiconductor manufacturing systems are extremely complex, and successful ramp-ups depend on teams that can coordinate engineering design, supply chain readiness, facility infrastructure, and operational execution simultaneously.
I also believe there is a growing need for engineers who combine manufacturing expertise with data-driven decision-making. As manufacturing systems become increasingly digital, organizations need professionals who can leverage data analytics and simulation tools to assess production capacity, identify bottlenecks, and enhance operational performance.
In the long term, workforce development must be treated as a form of industrial infrastructure. Countries that invest in training engineers, technicians, and manufacturing leaders will have a significant advantage in scaling advanced semiconductor production.
Many discussions focus on capital investment, but less on execution risk. What are the key operational risks that could derail semiconductor scale-up projects in the U.S. over the next five years?
The biggest operational risk is assuming that capital deployment automatically translates into manufacturing readiness. In reality, semiconductor scale-up can be delayed by execution gaps across engineering, utilities, supplier capability, workforce readiness, and process qualification, even when funding is in place.
One major risk is sequencing failure. Complex projects only ramp successfully when infrastructure readiness, tool installation, process development, supplier qualification, and staffing are synchronized. If one of those workstreams lags, the full system can stall. I have seen in advanced manufacturing environments that delays often come not from a lack of investment, but from poor coordination across interdependent activities.
Another risk is underestimating qualification timelines. Advanced semiconductor manufacturing requires rigorous process validation and contamination control, and those activities cannot be compressed indefinitely without increasing long-term instability. A site can appear physically complete while still being far from production-ready.
Supply chain fragility is also a major risk. If critical materials, specialty chemicals, components, or service capabilities remain concentrated outside the U.S., then domestic fabs still face external dependencies that can interrupt scale-up. Similarly, if supplier ecosystems are built too narrowly, recovery from disruptions becomes slow and costly.
Finally, there is the risk of prioritizing speed over operational durability. Pressure to move quickly can lead organizations to underinvest in maintainability, redundancy, engineering review discipline, or workforce capability. That may accelerate early milestones, but it often creates larger problems later in yield performance, uptime, and long-term reliability.
In my view, the next five years will reward companies that manage semiconductor scale-up as an execution system, not just a construction project.
Having managed multi-billion dollar manufacturing portfolios, how should companies balance speed of deployment with engineering rigor, compliance, and long-term facility reliability?
The right balance comes from recognizing that speed and rigor are not opposites. In advanced manufacturing, speed becomes sustainable only when engineering discipline, compliance, and reliability are built into the deployment model from the beginning.
When organizations are under pressure to scale quickly, the temptation is to compress design reviews, shorten validation cycles, or defer noncritical infrastructure improvements. But in highly complex manufacturing systems, those shortcuts often create downstream costs in the form of delays, rework, instability, and compliance exposure. I have managed large manufacturing portfolios where the most effective programs were not the ones that moved fastest in the earliest phase, but the ones that maintained disciplined execution and therefore ramped more predictably.
The way to balance these priorities is through structured stage-gating, clear decision ownership, and strong cross-functional governance. Companies need to identify which elements are truly schedule-critical and which are reliability-critical, then manage both intentionally. For example, by enforcing strict engineering disciplines for mechanical component qualification and process safety, my teams accelerated time-to-market by 4 months while preventing $200M in potential rework and downtime costs.
Long-term facility reliability should also be treated as a strategic output, not a maintenance issue to be solved later. If a facility is designed and launched without enough attention to maintainability, resilience, and operational stability, the cost of that decision will surface during production ramp and asset life.
The companies that scale best are the ones that combine urgency with discipline. They move quickly, but they do so through strong engineering systems rather than around them.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of ManufacturingTomorrow
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