Comment by 542458
1 year ago
You can do advanced electronics manufacturing in North America, it just has tradeoffs - primarily cost and process availability. I work for a company that builds high-end electronics over in Canada; Opinions are my own.
Advanced electronics manufacturing never left the US. The problem is that all the consumer-grade stuff left, and what's left is all really high-end military stuff, and is stupidly expensive. It's great if you're a defense contractor building some state-of-the-art weapons system that really needs the performance offered by those process technologies, but if you want to build a simple prototype for your small business, or you want to build some not-so-cutting-edge electronics in high volume for consumers, it just isn't feasible.
We’re not military, but I hear what you’re saying. Generally when I look at the costs of doing stuff onshore vs offshore it’s typically ~2x more expensive to do it here. That blows out any ambitions of competing purely on price pretty quickly for most types of product.