Alignment Beats Attraction

One of the most common strategies regions pursue is this: land a major investor — and let the rest fall into place.

It feels efficient. It looks bold. It creates headlines.

And for a while, it works.

But in semiconductors — and especially in backend operations like Assembly, Test, and Packaging (ATP) — this approach hits a wall.

Unlike aerospace, where Sonora's ecosystem gradually aligned after initial anchor investments, the semiconductor value chain moves faster, demands more, and depends on deeper integration across actors who don’t always speak the same language: universities, government, suppliers, infrastructure developers, regulators, and industry itself.

The hardest part of building regional capacity isn’t funding or even talent.
It’s alignment.

And that’s exactly what Pillar 1: Coordination is designed to address.

Not Just One Player — One System

Sonora can’t bet on a single OSAT arriving and magically triggering an ecosystem reaction.

To become a true hub for backend investment, the region needs shared frameworks, cross-sector coordination, and mutual accountability — now, not later.

Why?

Because none of the other pillars work in isolation:

• Talent needs universities aligning with each other — and with U.S. standards — so skills are transferable, microcredentials stack, and students can move across institutions without friction. That’s coordination.

• Positioning depends on telling a credible story — one that matches what OSATs find on the ground. That requires alignment between marketing, readiness, and reality.

• Suppliers don’t integrate themselves. They need visibility into ATP requirements and cross-institutional support to qualify and scale.

• Infrastructure must match actual use cases — not generic industrial templates.

• Policy is only effective when it reduces risk — and risk is reduced when everyone’s pulling in the same direction.

• Programs like the Ecosystem Accelerator are only as strong as the willingness of actors to sit down together and build.

In short: every pillar requires coordination.

Pillar 1 doesn’t sit on top of the others. It runs through them.

Coordination as a Competitive Advantage

What does real coordination look like?

It’s not a task force. It’s not a ribbon cutting.

It’s a process — slow, iterative, sometimes messy — that turns parallel efforts into shared momentum. It’s building the kind of cross-sector trust that lets a government agency back an experimental supplier pilot, or a university adapt its curricula based on feedback from a visiting OSAT team.

It’s also a first-mover advantage that can’t be bought or copied.

Because even if another region gets more funding or interest later, it won’t matter if its actors are still working in silos.

There are things time unlocks that money can’t.

So What Happens Now?

Sonora is already doing the hard work of building together.

he goal isn’t perfection — it’s convergence.

When the strategy is shared, the programs aligned, and the actors show up not as representatives but as co-builders, a new kind of momentum starts to form.

And that’s what makes a region investable.

Not noise. Not logos. Not luck. Coordination.

Don’t Build It Alone

It’s tempting to think we can get this done by working harder inside our own institutions — more budget, better programs, stronger messaging. But the truth is, the kind of change Sonora is aiming for won’t come from one actor doing more. It will come from many actors doing it together — on purpose, with clarity, and with each other.

The first step isn’t technical. It’s not about incentives, suppliers, or facilities.

It’s about coordination.

And in Sonora, that means something we still don’t have: a formal, focused, cross-sector body to drive this effort — and the relationships to make sure we’re not building it alone.

If Everyone Owns It, No One Leads It

Right now, different groups are moving in the right direction — universities launching training programs, state agencies hosting Arizona delegations, suppliers asking how they can get involved. But without a shared frame, everyone’s sprinting on parallel tracks. No one’s tying it together.

What we need is an ATP Task Force — a small, committed group of public, private, and academic actors that sees the full picture and owns the job of stitching it together.

This doesn’t mean building a bureaucracy. It means focusing our efforts through a real structure — one that can:

• Track progress across all pillars

• Connect the dots between talent, policy, and supply chain

• Ensure that when an OSAT visits Sonora, they see a region that’s not just motivated — but coordinated

And it’s not just about internal coordination. This task force must be binational by design.

Arizona isn’t just a neighbor — it’s an extension of the value chain we want to join. And without regular coordination with players like the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), ASU, and key U.S. firms, we’ll miss the chance to plug in while the window is open.

Why This Matters Now

Coordination isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between strategy and drift.

The regions that are moving fastest — in the U.S., Asia, and Europe — all have one thing in common: they’ve put together focused, multi-actor groups that lead from the center. Groups that meet regularly. That update plans. That solve problems between meetings. That know how to build trust, not just decks.

If Sonora doesn’t do the same, we risk showing up late — or worse, showing up scattered.

The world doesn’t need another fragmented ecosystem with big ambition and no coordination. It needs regions that can work like systems — and show they’re ready.

This Task Force is how we begin.

Want to help lead Sonora’s ATP transformation?

We’re organizing the core actors to launch a multisector Task Force.
If you’re in government, academia, or industry and want to be part of this early coordination effort, let us know.

Express Interest →