ABSTRACT
Much of the current literature on hi-tech developments within the electronics industry tends to focus on the spatial and organizational arrangements evident in innovative clusters such as Silicon Valley. There are, however, many very different forms of spatial organization which engender innovations within the semiconductor industry, and these variations depend on the particular sub-sector of that industry. In this contribution we discuss the case of US, European, and Asian semiconductor producers, analyzing data from over 100 semiconductor plants operated by over 50 firms located within the USA, Europe and Asia. In particular, we will focus on the firms undertaking the wafer manufacturing processes. As we will see, in order to discuss the geographical behavior of many parts of the semiconductor industry, it is necessary to consider not only organizational issues, but also the different sub-sectors within the industry. From these perspectives, many of the generalizations made about the semiconductor industry based on observations of Silicon Valley are seen to be rather inappropriate.
