The Department of Defense announced the establishment of eight regional microelectronic hubs on Wednesday in a concerted effort to bolster domestic semiconductor production.
These eight hubs, which are in seven states, were awarded between $15 million and $40 million to establish initial operations for a total of $238 million. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the "Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act" funding on Wednesday, which is the largest award to date under President Joe Biden's CHIPS and Science Act.
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"The Microelectronics Commons is focused on bridging and accelerating the lab-to-fab transition, that infamous valley of death between R&D and production," Hicks said. "President Biden's CHIPS Act will supercharge America's ability to prototype, manufacture, and produce microelectronics scale. CHIPS and Science made clear to America — and the world — that the U.S. government is committed to ensuring that our industrial and scientific powerhouses can deliver what we need to secure our future in this era of strategic competition."
The Defense Department received $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding through 2027 and the hubs will focus on advancing six areas of U.S. technology: secure edge/internet of things computing, 5G/6G, artificial intelligence hardware, quantum technology, electromagnetic warfare, and commercial leap ahead technologies.
The eight hubs selected are Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub, which will be in Massachusetts; Silicon Crossroads Microelectronics Commons Hub, in Indiana at the Applied Research Institute; California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub Hub, at the University of Southern California; Commercial Leap Ahead for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors Hub, at North Carolina State University; Southwest Advanced Prototyping Hub, at Arizona State University; Midwest Microelectronics Consortium Hub, in Ohio; Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub, which will be at the Research Foundation for the State University of New York; and California-Pacific-Northwest AI Hardware Hub, at Leland Stanford Junior University, which is also in California.
Hicks said the department received 83 proposals from potential hubs, while next month the department will host the first Microelectronics Commons Annual Meeting.
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President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act on Aug. 9, 2022, to boost domestic microelectronic production. The U.S. currently relies on East Asia for about 75% of chip production, a senior defense official told reporters.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told lawmakers on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Tuesday that the CHIPS production would come to "a grinding halt" if the government shuts down at the end of the month.