FR ain't the storehouse of wisdom it was when I first came here 12 yrs ago.
You’ve finally convinced me. We’ve had this discussion before. :^(
Once the design is done, the task of mass producing the integrated circuits is shipped off to Philippines, Malaysia, or China. Silicon wafers, cut from cleanroom-grown crystals, hold dozens of rectangular future integrated circuits which are precisely machined and sanded, masked per the American engineers' VLSI design, doped with boron and phosphorous to form the N and P channels, masked and etched for the metal oxide gates, packaged into what we think of as an "integrated circuit", QA tested, and delivered.
I believe that at one time Phoenix, AZ was a hotbed for chip fabrication.
The creative and analytical aspects of the development still originate here in the U.S.