Major news updates this week include the first insights into how US taxpayers’ money will be used to support the domestic semiconductor industry. Among the other updates, fast-charging car batteries getting closer to mass production.
Details of U.S. CHIPS Act implementation
The U.S. Department of Commerce has released its implementation strategy for the $50 billion CHIPS Act. The program, called ‘CHIPS for America’, will be housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Approximately three quarters of the incentives funding, around $28 billion, will be targeted to establish domestic production of leading-edge logic and memory chips that require the most sophisticated manufacturing processes available today. Arguably, Intel and Micron will be the main beneficiaries of this share. At least a quarter of the available CHIPS incentives funding, or approximately $10 billion, will be devoted to new manufacturing capacity for mature and current-generation chips, new and specialty technologies, and for semiconductor industry suppliers. The remaining $11 billion will be invested in new R&D initiatives – a National Semiconductor Technology Center, a National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program, up to three new Manufacturing USA Institutes – and in NIST metrology R&D programs.
Some details about the conditions under which applicant companies will be granted ‘CHIPS for America’ funding have been provided by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during a press briefing at the White House. “This is not a blank check for companies,” she said. “This is not for them to pad their bottom line.” (…) “CHIPS funds cannot be used for stock buybacks. CHIPS funds are not intended to replace private capital,” she added. Raimondo then addressed issues specifically concerning China, explaining that beneficiary companies “are not allowed to use this money to invest in China, they can’t develop leading-edge technologies in China, they can’t send latest technology overseas.” (…) “Companies who receive CHIP funds can’t build leading-edge or advanced technology facilities in China for a period of 10 years. Companies who receive the money can only expand their mature node factories in China to serve the Chinese market,” she said.
