Apparently Brits are rather good at the cutting edge of the semiconductor industry. OK. But there are problems in being able to translate that being good into output and actually shipping chips. So, obviously, we need an investment plan to enable all of this to happen. At which point, the absolutely free, no cost, semiconductor investment plan:
Paragraf is the sort of gold dust company that Britain vitally needs if it is to sustain an advanced semiconductor industry, and if it is to avoid getting crushed in the arms race for global chip ascendancy.
A spinoff from the Materials Science Department at Cambridge, Paragraf is the world’s first and only manufacturer of 2D graphene chips for sensors. These chips are one-atom thick. They are a thousand times faster than silicon wafers used today, and they use 10,000 times less energy to do the job.
That all sounds terribly exciting and of course it’ll be putting those chips out into the market that really tests whether they are so terribly exciting. So, what are the problems in rolling out Brit expertise, in Britain?
Paragraf has a plant in Huntingdon. Demand is so intense that it is now searching for a much bigger site with the infrastructure and skills pool for the big league. Speed is of the essence. “Right now I’m afraid we’re going to have to go elsewhere,” said Simon Thomas, the company’s chief executive.
Why’s that then?
Dr Thomas described the British political class as technologically primitive, with scant understanding of how semiconductors underpin the 21st Century economy or what it takes to nurture the ecosystem behind it.
Given that the ruling class all did PPE not anything with even a smattering of even maths, let alone real technology, we can understand that.
It took six months for Paragraf to obtain a work visa for a German specialist, and nine months for an Indian. “You want to cry: these are highly-skilled people. There are never enough visas, and it is expensive for us, and expensive for them. The Government is throttling how quickly we can grow.” he said.
He has had to build an electricity sub-station because the public infrastructure is inadequate. Don’t get him started on the stone-age planning system.
“I am passionate about trying to grow the business in the UK. If we invested in the next generation of graphene, silicon carbide, and diamond technologies, we could own the world market in fifteen years. We have the IP, and nobody else in the world has it. But we can’t expand without the necessary support,” he said.
What isn’t being said is that a plan is required. Nor money even. Most certainly not a plan using government money to enable the PPE classes to direct the industry. What is actually required is better general governance. Or even, as here, less governance. Simply get out of the way and enable people to hire foreigners, build factories and thus enable business to get on with being worldbeating.
Oh, and that substation? That’s because the plan we do have for electricity is heavy on unreliables - just what you don’t need when making chips.
So, that’s the plan. Let’s have less government to enable not just the fructifying in pockets by not having to tax to pay for current levels of it, let’s have less government so that those who know what they’re doing can get on with doing it.
Who knows, maybe Britain’s also good at other things than chip making and we’d see a perking up of other parts of the economy if government just got out of the way? Worth a try, no?