A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyushu Island on July 28, prompting precautionary inspections, temporary disruptions and localized power outages across the region. While several chipmakers suspended operations for safety checks, initial assessments indicate limited facility damage and gradual resumption of production. This report provides an update to our previous insight on the July 28 Kumamoto earthquake and its potential implications for the semiconductor a...

For most of the postwar era, the automotive industry focused its anxieties on the traditional pillars of steel, oil and labor. As the sector evolved, it later found itself preoccupied with the complexities of battery supply chains. Now, it must contend with lithography, gallium, trusted foundries and the unsettling question of whether a chip buried in a door controller carries the wrong geopolitical ancestry. This is the logic behind Pax Silica, the latest American attempt to turn...