U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Austin) participated in a roundtable on Monday (April 18) with University of Texas leaders and Austin-area businesses to discuss boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing, Austin ABC affiliate KVUE reported.
The federal lawmakers learned about the university's new public-private partnership, Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE), per KVUE. UT's J.J. Pickle Research Campus hosted the roundtable.
Cornyn shed some light on why the U.S. is behind Asia when it comes to the production of semiconductors, which have been among the items in short supply as the COVID-19 pandemic raged worldwide.
"It's 30% more expensive to build a semiconductor fab here in the United States than Asia, that's why so many companies go there," the senator said, KVUE reported.
According to the station, Cornyn and McCaul were instrumental in the introduction and passage of measures to incentivize the creation of semiconductor facilities here instead of on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
Two years ago, KVUE reported, the legislators lent a hand in the approval of the CHIPS for America Act, a piece of legislation designed to aid the American semiconductor industry.
TIE head Dr. S.V. Sreenivasan stressed the importance of workers when it comes to building semiconductor facilities.
"That's the whole picture is R&D, technology development, building appropriate facilities that we need because these are facility intensive activities in manufacturing and then building the industry and university coalition to address R&D and workforce development," Sreenivasan said, according to KVUE.