Sounds like Arizona doesn’t have enough chip knowledge, which is believable because there are no other chip or silicon manufacturing in the state.

Dude you are so wrong. Intel has MASSIVE fabs there and are building an even larger one on Chandler, Motorola has built chips in AZ at many different locations for 30+ years, Honeywell, Nokia, etc. ALL have plants there. It is colloquially known as the Silicon Desert because of this.