This whitepaper, developed within the context of the ICOS-project funded by the European Commission, sets itself the goal to spell out the generic challenges of the semiconductor field and the associated options to mitigate those challenges through international cooperation. The partners of the ICOS consortium, encompassing key industrial, R&D and academic entities of the semiconductor field in the European Union, have identified fifteen such generic challenges. For each of them, the report discusses the main attributes of the challenge and proposes modalities of international cooperation that may be suitable to address the challenge and develop mitigating approaches. The whitepaper is written from a European perspective, but, as a result of the generic nature of the approach, its findings have a relatively universal significance. Furthermore, the report may act as a source of inspiration to international stakeholders in the semiconductor field. For these reasons, the whitepaper is a public document.