As Congress bides its time with the CHIPS bill, semiconductor companies are getting angry. Intel announced last week that it might push opening its planned Ohio factory complex because of the delay in congressional action.

The $52 billion bill subsidizing domestic chip production has been delayed since last year. And chipmakers aiming to expand domestically have had enough.

• In a statement to The Washington Post, Intel claimed the Ohio factory will “depend heavily” on CHIPS act funding.
• GlobalFoundries echoed this, saying that the funding would “affect the rate and pace at which we invest in expanding our U.S. manufacturing capacity.”

Chipmakers say they want the U.S. to be a semiconductor powerhouse, and the bill will help. Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra told Axios that Congress has a “historical and critically urgent opportunity to restore American leadership in the semiconductor industry.”

But these companies don’t really need this funding to survive. Wall Street wouldn’t be happy if the bill fails, but Intel won’t go out of business.

• Micron, meanwhile, has moved the majority of its manufacturing plants to east Asia over the past two decades, and it hasn’t committed to actually building any new facilities in the U.S.

Congress didn’t come through with a deal after its meeting last week, and companies are impatient for the bill to pass before the August recess. House leaders said that there is “no reason that we should not pass this bill through Congress in July.” For chipmakers, it can’t come soon enough.

— Nat Rubio-Licht (they/them/theirs)