3 Min Read FILE PHOTO: A researcher plants a semiconductor on an interface board during a research work to design and develop a semiconductor product at Tsinghua Unigroup research centre in Beijing, China, February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (Reuters) - More than a dozen business groups representing automakers, medical device makers and manufacturers sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday calling on him to work with U.S. lawmakers to provide federal funding for the construction of new chip factories. The groups, which include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as industry-specific associations representing General Motors Co, Caterpillar Inc and Medtronic PLC, among others, sent the letter as a shortage of semiconductors continues to disrupt U.S. automobile factories and threatens to lower the automakers’ profits by billions of dollars.