Final semiconductor R&D facility location among latest CHIPS for America awards

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced the third major R&D facility as part of its CHIPS for America program. This new facility will be located at the Arizona State University (ASU) Research Park in Tempe, Arizona. It will host the world’s first 300mm front-end semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging research center, allowing researchers and industry leaders to develop cutting-edge materials, devices, and packaging solutions.

A press release from Arizona State University notes that the university’s semiconductor research and workforce development components of its total $992 million research portfolio in 2024 will play “a pivotal role in the success of the new facility. The university’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, the largest engineering school in the nation with more than 33,000 students and 600 faculty members, will support the facility through Core Research Facilities and state-of-the-art labs.”

The university also will provide immediate access for Natcast, the operator of the National Semiconductor Technology Center, to ASU’s cutting-edge resources, including the MacroTechnology Works—a 250,000-square-foot facility with a 49,000-square-foot clean room and specialized tools for R&D, prototyping and semiconductor manufacturing, according to the press release, which notes, (t)he building’s industry-scale capabilities include a $270 million collaboration between ASU and Applied Materials, with co-investment support from the Arizona Commerce Authority, as well as the university’s NanoFab and Advanced Electronics and Photonics lab, with tools for prototyping new technologies.”

The State of Arizona is also a co-investment partner according to the Arizona Commerce Authority announcement the regarding the award. Final investment amounts for the national R&D facility were not disclosed, including for the U.S. Department of Commerce, as contract details are still being negotiated, according to a Jan. 6 article in the Phoenix Business Journal.

The facility is expected to open in 2028 and will play a role in advancing U.S. innovation, economic growth, and national security in the semiconductor field. It represents the final piece of the R&D model announced by Natcast in July 2024 and follows the selection of two other flagship R&D facilities (see the November 7, 2024 SSTI Digest). The first is at the Albany NanoTech Complex in New York, focusing on Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a critical technology for producing advanced computer chips. The second, in Sunnyvale, California, is dedicated to semiconductor design and electronic design automation, supporting innovation in the tech industry. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, these three facilities highlight the U.S. commitment to reducing dependence on foreign technology and reclaiming leadership in the global semiconductor industry.

Commerce also recently made several other CHIPS Incentives Awards announcements for direct funding under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities:

• Up to $407 million awarded to Amkor Technology Arizona, Inc., a subsidiary of Amkor Technology, Inc. This award will directly support Amkor’s investment of approximately $2 billion in a greenfield advanced packaging and test facility in Peoria, Arizona, and is expected to create an estimated 2,000 manufacturing jobs and, at the peak of construction, more than 2,000 construction jobs.
• Up to $4.745 billion awarded Samsung Electronics (Samsung) to support their investment of over $37 billion to turn its existing presence in Central Texas into a comprehensive semiconductor chips ecosystem.
• Up to $1.61 billion awarded to Texas Instruments to support its investment of more than $18 billion through the end of the decade to construct three new state-of-the-art facilities, including two in Texas and one in Utah.
• Up to $458 million awarded SK hynix to build a memory packaging plant for artificial intelligence (AI) products and an advanced packaging fabrication and R&D facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. SK hynix has invested approximately $3.87 billion in the project.
• Up to $325 million awarded to Hemlock Semiconductor (HSC) to support the construction of a new manufacturing facility in Hemlock, Michigan. The project is expected to create approximately 180 manufacturing jobs and over 1,000 construction jobs.

Additionally, CHIPS for America awarded the Semiconductor Research Corporation Manufacturing Consortium Corporation (SRC) $285 million to establish and operate a CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute headquartered in Durham, North Carolina. “With a combined total investment of over $1 billion, the new institute, known as SMART USA (Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA) will focus on efforts to more rapidly develop, validate, and use digital twins to improve domestic semiconductor design, manufacturing, advanced packaging, assembly, and test processes,” according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

For a comprehensive list of all CHIPS for America Awards, click here.