The U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC)’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has outlined the vision and strategy for the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), a key research and development program established by the CHIPS and Science Act.
The U.S. Congress approved the funds for the creation of a national center to support and extend the research of semiconductors, design, engineering and advanced manufacturing. This will help to increase competitiveness in chip making, shore up national security and hopefully create a more resilient supply chain, NIST said.
The funding, which could be as much as $11 billion for R&D, will include the creation and sponsoring of research programs. NSTC will also work with academic and industry partners to create affiliated technical centers nationwide as well as lay the groundwork for growing a domestic semiconductor workforce.
“The NSTC will be an ambitious public-private consortium where government, industry, customers, suppliers, educational institutions, entrepreneurs and investors will come together to innovate, connect, and solve problems,” said Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce. “Most importantly, the NSTC will ensure that the U.S. leads the way in the next generation of semiconductor technologies which can enable major new advances in areas that will advance our economic and national security. While the manufacturing incentives of the CHIPS Act will bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S., a robust R&D ecosystem led by the NSTC will keep it here.”
Three goals
The NSTC will focus on three main goals.
First, extending U.S. leadership in semiconductor technology such as designing, prototyping and piloting emerging technology to provide a foundation for future applications and industries.
Secondly, the center will reduce the time and cost of moving from design idea to commercialization including designing, prototyping, manufacturing packaging and scaling of semiconductors.
Lastly, to build and sustain a chip workforce development ecosystem with the NSTC serving as the body and center to scale the technical workforce such as scientists, engineers and technicians. The NSTC workforce program will support expanding recruiting, training and retraining for the semiconductor ecosystem.
Specifically, the NSTC programs will feed the entire supply chain ecosystem like:
- Fabless companies
- Research institutions
- Community colleges
- State and local governments
- National labs
- Foundries
- Integrated device manufacturers
- Equipment vendors
- Materials suppliers
- Labor unions
- Investors
The NSTC will work to fulfill unmet needs in the supply chain such as access to emerging materials and process technologies, digital assets and design tools, a chiplet stockpile and incubation support for startups, NIST said.
Already investing
Just a few months after the CHIPS Act was signed by President Joe Biden, there have been a dozen new projects across the U.S. worth more than $200 billion in private and public investments, according to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
The CHIPS Act’s manufacturing grants and substantial investments in semiconductor research is expected to bolster the U.S. economy and reinforce the U.S.’s national security and supply chains, the SIA said.
These new fabs and facilities include four new fabs from Intel Corp., two new fabs from Micron Technology, two fabs from TSMC, one fab from Samsung Electronics, four fabs from Texas Instruments and many more facilities from U.S. chipmakers.
And while the CHIPS Act is funding new fabs and facilities, a report earlier this year said it wouldn’t be a free handout but would require these billion-dollar companies to share a portion of future profits if they do exceedingly well. Any chipmaker that receives more than $150 million in direct funding would qualify for this threshold. However, so far this has not been expanded on in terms of how it would work.
For more information on the creation of the NSTC, see NIST’s A Vision and Strategy for the National Semiconductor Technology Center report.
