TechWorks Semiconductor Leadership Group

TechWorks SLG consists of senior executives from organisations across the UK semiconductor value chain. We identify and promote UK strengths and opportunities, providing a unified and balanced industry voice, and supporting Government with expert advice and meaningful policy recommendations.

Jump to our policy papers

Leadership Group Members

The semiconductor century

Since the start of the century, the growth in adoption of microelectronics has been exponential. Smartphones, watches, cars, industrial equipment have all been defined or redefined by semiconductor technology. Over the same period, the market has grown from $150bn to $630bn, whilst chip complexity has increased from 250 thousand transistors per mm2 (at 180nm) to 180 million (at 2nm).
Forecast to grow to a $2 trillion global industry in the next 10 years, there remains no industry or market which semiconductors have not touched.

Innovating the future, today

Innovating the future, today

We are living through a new age of discovery and innovation, with breakthroughs in fundamental science and technology unlocking transformational opportunities in AI, Quantum, Robotics & automation, E-mobility, Clean energy, and more. At the heart of all these new and emerging markets are innovations in semiconductor devices. Devices which define the very function of the emergent product or service and are the fundamental invention which enable these solutions to exist.

The UK opportunity

In the UK, hundreds of companies are engaged across the semiconductor value chain from research and design to product engineering, manufacturing and end-market development. With many countries now prioritising their national semiconductor capabilities, there is a unique opportunity for the UK to grow our own industry to ensure we can compete globally over the coming decades. As an advanced economy, our future national wellbeing will depend on growing competitive and successful companies that design, make and sell semiconductor products

The semiconductor value chain

The industry consists of a complex web of interdependent entities, each representing a uniquely valuable part of the overall supply chain and contributing to end market value. UK companies are involved across the whole, supporting jobs and valuable exports. The industry, and the competition, is global and the value built at each stage is dependent on the stage before. The overall ecosystem is symbiotic, with innovation and business often growing from cross sector collaboration.

Technology and economic value increases from initial innovation (e.g. in university), through component development (the chip) to a system level solution (chip + other essential hardware and software). Even without manufacturing the actual chip, the companies which sell chip-based system solutions to end-market product developers enjoy significant growth and value creation.

EDA Design Tools: Software used to design, validate and prepare devices for manufacture.
Intellectual Property (IP): Licensable commonly used circuit building blocks for integrating into chips.

Fabrication: The manufacturing of devices (diced from wafers) from a design. Two models exist:

Integrated Design & Manufacture (IDM): Design and manufacturing occurs in one organisation.

Foundry: Outsourced manufacture of devices for multiple (fabless) chip companies.

Chip Design: The design, validation, prototyping and testing of a device, ready for production. Note: Fabless companies design and sell semiconductors but outsource their fabrication to a foundry.

Packaging: Encapsulating the raw silicon chips into packages for end-product integration.
Fab Equipment Supplier: Development and supply of the equipment used to manufacture devices.

Latest Updates

Click on a title for more information

Building a globally competitive semiconductor sector, November 2023

We Proposed to HM Treasury that, in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, they change capex rules for innovation funding or tax credits to allow significant capex recovery to support semiconductor manufacturing scale-up, enabling UK companies to stay globally competitive