Semiconductor Equipment

CHIPS Act roundup: The final funding under Biden

24 January 2025
Coherent’s indium phosphide wafers will be doubled through an expansion of its wafer facility through the CHIPS Act. Source: Coherent

In the final days of the Joe Biden presidency, the Department of Commerce’s CHIPS and Science Act came to preliminary funding for several new companies including Infinera, Coherent, Corning and Edwards Vacuum.

The total amount of this subsidy funding round is more than $200 million.

Corning

The deal with Corning is for up to $32 million to allow the company to increase production of its high purity fused silica (HPFS) and extreme ultra-low expansion (ULE) glass. The funding will also scale a novel technology manufacturing process in Canton, New York.

HPFS and ULE are key components in deep ultraviolet (DUV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines and photomasks — two critical technologies in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing. The investments would allow for an improvement in EUV performance with a lower carbon footprint.

It is expected to result in up to 100 construction jobs and up to 500 production jobs.

Infinera

Meanwhile, Infinera is garnering up to $93 million to support the construction of a new fab in San Jose, California, and an advanced test and packaging facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This will result in an increase in domestic integrated photonic chip manufacturing capacity of roughly 10 times.

The company specializes in indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (InP PICs) that use light to transfer information with greater efficiency. These InP PICs and optical modules are used in optical network communications for data centers and broadband networks that connect cities.

The investment will help create about 500 manufacturing jobs and 1,200 construction jobs.

Coherent

Coherent, a maker of materials and lasers, will receive up to $79 million in direct funding through the CHIPS Act. The funding will be used to increase the production capacity of 150 mm and 200 mm silicon carbide (SiC) substrates.

It will also support the expansion of the facility’s SiC epitaxial wafer manufacturing capacity, back-end line processing, electronic performance and reliability testing capabilities.

SiC substrates are wide bandgap materials used in energy, automotive and military applications. The funding will increase the substrate capacity to over 750,000 substrates per year and more than double the output of epitaxial wafers annually.

Both expansions will result in about 700 manufacturing and construction jobs.

Edwards Vacuum

The $18 million of proposed direct funding to Edwards Vacuum will be used to support the construction of the company’s manufacturing facility in Genesee County, New York. This facility produces dry vacuum pumps for semiconductor production.

The goal is to create a reliable domestic supply of pumps for the chip manufacturing sector as there is currently no domestic production of semiconductor-grade dry vacuum pumps that are used in both advanced and legacy semiconductor fabs.

The pumps are installed beneath the fab and maintain the chamber environment where chips are processed by evacuating toxic fumes and chemicals.

The funding will help to create up to 100 construction jobs and 500 production jobs.

Other developments

GlobalFoundries (GF) received an additional award of up to $75 million to support the expansion of its existing Malta, New York, facility for advanced packaging technology.

The funding will also be used for fully integrated pure-play foundry wafer manufacturing and advanced packaging process flows in the U.S.

Previously, GF was awarded about $1.5 billion for three expansion projects and new fabs. The company announced earlier this week that it will be developing the New York Advanced Packaging and Photonics Center, which will be used for silicon photonics and other essential chips needed for markets like AI, automotive, aerospace and defense and communications.

To contact the author of this article, email PBrown@globalspec.com


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