W. CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., July 14, 2026 — The ASCET Center of Excellence, operating under ASTM International through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), today released an environmental scan that charts the current semiconductor and microelectronics standardization ecosystem. This report identifies the key gaps and opportunities that will be critical to sustaining U.S. leadership in this strategically vital sector.

This map of the ecosystem evaluates the semiconductor sector at all levels by:

• Identifying key semiconductor and microelectronic stakeholders, including industry leaders, startups, and companies across logic, memory, and packaging
• Mapping existing semiconductor standards, including current roadmaps, relevant standardization activity, and strategy documents
• Assessing challenges and gaps in semiconductor and microelectronic standardization, including regulatory inconsistency, lack of verification on emerging technologies, and other topics like chiplet interoperability, supply-chain traceability, and more
• Summarizing ongoing semiconductor standardization efforts, including active working groups, draft standards, consortia, and standardization initiatives

The report highlights accelerated growth in AI chips and custom processors as tech companies build larger and more complex systems powered by machine learning. While semiconductor standards are relatively mature compared with those in other emerging technologies such as quantum, the analysis finds that they must evolve more rapidly to keep pace with innovation and deployment demands.

“Semiconductors and microelectronics underpin nearly every critical and emerging technology, yet many of the barriers to scaling them are standardization gaps rather than technology gaps,” says Mohsen Seifi, Ph.D., ASTM vice president and principal investigator for ASCET. “This scan gives industry, government, and the standards community a shared map of where voluntary, industry-driven standards can close those gaps and help sustain U.S. leadership in the field.”

The report highlights many opportunities to refine semiconductor and microelectronic standardization initiatives.

Key recommendations include:

• defining protocols for evaluating AI-powered chip design
• developing reliability frameworks for 3D packaging
• fortifying supply chain traceability

The newly published semiconductor scan completes a series of four living documents, each covering ASCET’s four critical and emerging technologies: AI, quantum technologies, biotechnology, and semiconductors and microelectronics. All reports can be found at ascet.com/reports. The reports will be updated periodically based on new findings, as these technologies evolve rapidly.

Through continued engagement with industry, government, and standards bodies, ASCET aims to advance alignment in U.S. standards development to support national competitiveness, economic security, and technological innovation.

Support for this activity is provided, in part, by National Institute of Standards and Technology financial assistance award 70NANB24H334.

About ASCET
ASCET – Advancing Standardization for Critical and Emerging Technologies – is a transformative initiative aimed at supporting private sector-driven U.S. engagement and capacity building in the development and use of international standards. Learn more at www.ascet.com.

Media Inquiries: Gavin O’Reilly, tel +1.610.832.9618; goreilly@astm.org
ASCET Contact: Tania Olabi-Colón; tolabi-colon@astm.org