Through the CHIPS and Science Act, the Biden-Harris administration has awarded Samsung Electronics up to $6.4 billion in direct funding to build a new fab in Texas.
The total direct funding from the CHIPS Act now stands at more than $23 billion after the past few weeks have seen Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and now Samsung. The U.S. government said that these investments will help the U.S. to be on track to produce roughly 20% of the world’s logic chips by 2030 and boost overall semiconductor manufacturing domestically.
Who’s next?
While many of the major foundries have already received funding — TSMC, Samsung, Intel and GlobalFoundries received funding in February — two other companies have received funding in Microchip Technology with $162 million and $35 million to BAE Systems to modernize its Nashua, New Hampshire, facility used to produce chips for the defense department.
The direct funding is likely to continue with numerous other companies potentially receiving incentives in the coming months. The direct funding could come to Micron Technology as it has announced an investment of $15 billion — part of a planned $40 billion that the company will spend over the next decade to increase semiconductor manufacturing for leading-edge memory.
Another potential target would be Texas Instruments as it has plans to build four 300 mm fabs in Sherman, Texas, and is investing $11 billion in a 300 mm chip wafer fab in Lehi, Utah — considered to be the largest economic investment in the state’s history.
Construction of the Lehi expansion is expected to begin in the second half of 2023 with production as early as 2026. When completed, the fab will manufacture tens of millions of analog and embedded processing chips daily.
Other companies that have pledged to build new facilities either for chipmaking, packaging, R&D or test and assembly include Wolfspeed, Integra, Applied Materials, XFab and many more. Any or all of these may receive some type of direct investment in the coming months.
Samsung’s deal
Samsung already pledged to build a state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing fab in Tyler, Texas. The deal will help to secure a more resilient semiconductor supply chain in the U.S.
Samsung said it will invest more than $40 billion in the region in the coming years and the proposed investment would support the creation of over 20,000 jobs. Originally, Samsung said it would invest $17 billion in the Tyler facility, but the company revealed it might build as many as 11 fabs in Texas as it looks to bolster its foundry capacity by as many as three times in the next five years.
The CHIPS Act funding will help:
- Develop two leading-edge logic fabs
- R&D fab
- Advanced packaging facility
- Expansion of Samsung’s Austin facility
The funding for Samsung, and earlier the funding for TSMC, put to rest the debate that the U.S. may not fund foreign fabs on domestic soil. Both companies earlier had lobbied the U.S. government for inclusion of the CHIPS Act funding when it was first passed in 2022
“Today’s announcement will help Samsung bring more semiconductor production, innovation, and jobs to U.S. shores, reinforcing America’s economy, competitiveness, and critical chip supply chains,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). “We applaud Samsung for investing boldly in U.S.-based manufacturing and salute the U.S. Commerce Department for making significant headway in implementing the CHIPS Act’s manufacturing incentives and R&D programs.”
The SIA has tracked dozens of new semiconductor ecosystem projects across 25 U.S. states since the CHIPS Act was passed. It will create about 50,000 jobs in the chip supply chain and hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. jobs in the economy.
TSMC
Earlier this month, TSMC was awarded $6.6 billion in direct funding for its fabs that it is building in Arizona. Simultaneously, the world’s largest foundry said it would build a third fab in Arizona to meet the demand coming from the U.S. for leading edge technologies.
TSMC said it is making progress toward the first fab and construction has begun on the second fab. The third fab will bring TSMC’s total capital expenditure for the Phoenix, Arizona, hub to more than $65 billion. The company claims it is the largest foreign direct investment in Arizona history as well as the largest foreign direct investments in a greenfield project in U.S. history.
The three fabs will create about 6,000 direct jobs as well as 20,000 accumulated construction jobs and tens of thousands of indirect supplier and consumer jobs.
Intel
In late March, Intel Corp. received the largest direct funding investment from the CHIPS Act with a $8.5 billion awarded to the American company.
The funding will be used to help Intel in semiconductor projects such as:
- Two fabs in Arizona
- Two fabs in Ohio
- Expansion of its New Mexico operations
- Expansion of its Oregon facility
Intel said it will benefit from a U.S. Treasury Department Investment Tax Credit (ITC) of up to 25% on more than $100 billion in qualified investments and up to $11 billion for federal loan eligibility.
Intel said this will help in its private investment of more than $100 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. This will work toward increasing capacity for Intel Foundry as well as expand domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. focused on emerging technologies like AI.
In total, 10,000 company jobs and nearly 20,000 construction jobs as well as 50,000 indirect jobs with suppliers and supporting industries.
