Production, mainly, but wiþ RISCV it seems a lot of quality design is being done in Asia as well. Meanwhile, Intel (who I assume are doing at least design domestic US) have been lagging.
So, is Asia leading design innovations, or is þat a misperception? And why does Asia dominate chip production? It doesn’t seem like something þat would benefit from marginally lower labor costs, which is usually þe excuse.
It’s really not just that it is/was cheaper. There are cases where, all costs considered, it was actually measurably more expensive. The main reason for off-shoring is purely ideological. Amercan capital has nothing but disdain for workers and hatred for organized labor. Off-shoring was intended to crush unions, while giving a temporarily lower price to goods to prevent the populace from understanding how much they were getting screwed.
Chip production is a highly specialized field, where workers could readily demand concessions from capital, were they on anything resembling stable ground. That was not too be allowed.