After a record exports performance in 2021 and despite an expected 20- percent growth this year, the Semiconductor and Electronic Industries in the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) is bracing for the continued supply woes of chips in the global market.
Dan Lachica, SEIPI president, said to sustain growth, the Philippines will continue leveraging on demand for electronic components used for advanced technologies.
These include Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, industrial revolution 4.0, electric vehicles, telemedicine and work-from-home.
“Global wafer supply constraint will continue,” Lachica said.
Lachica added the Philippines currently depends on Taiwan for chip supply.
This, he said, poses a disadvantage in terms of cost, lead time, potential intellectual property protection issues, among others.
At SEIPI’s annual membership meeting last month, Lachica disclosed the Philippines is not capable of establishing a commercial wafer fabrication which would lay the foundation to the country’s downstream chip industry. Instead, the country will move upstream to the integrated chip (IC) design operation.
“We are going to be setting up IC design training labs for the fledgling IC design sector in the Philippines,” Lachica said.
He said this will then be followed by the setting up of lab- scale wafer fabrication to support the prototyping of the IC design.
The wafer fab laboratories will be hosted by the Department of Science and Technology which would help in mobilizing the cluster design companies which will organize the training system.
Total electronics exports reached an all-time high of $45.92 billion in 2021, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
The sector accounted for 61.52 percent of the country’s total commodity exports for the year, and a 12.9 percent annual growth from $ 40.67 billion in 2020.
Semiconductors accounted for 67 percent of total exports at $31 billion.
