Two more preliminary awards under the US CHIPS Act have been announced, one for $6.7 million proposed for Rogue Valley Microdevices in Florida and the other for $75 million proposed for Entegris in Colorado. The RVM proposed award is the first under the CHIPS Act process granted to a women-and minority-owned business.
RVM would use its $6.7 million proposed grant for construction of a MEMS and sensor foundry in Palm Bay, Fla., which is expected to triple its manufacturing capacity, according to US CHIPS officials. RVM is one of the only US-based pureplay MEMS foundries which focuses on high-mix, low-volume wafer and MEMS foundry services important to the defense and biomedical industries. The devices are made on 300 nm wafers.
It is the first proposed CHIPS Act investment in a women- and minority-owned business, according to CHIPS Act officials. RVM, based in Medford, Ore., announced acquisition of a 50,000 square foot commercial building in Palm Bay for its second microfab facility on June 28, three days before the CHIPS award.
It is also the first MEMS foundry to secure proposed CHIPS Act funding, noted RVM founder and CEO Jessica Gomez. “Rogue Valley Microdevices is deeply committed to the onshore manufacturing of microelectronics,” Gomez said in a statement. The company will use the capital to boost production of miniature, intelligent sensors that are critical for a robust supply chain for automotive, biomedical and industrial, she added.
The new location on the Space Coast of Florida will soon become the industry’s first MEMS pure-play foundry offering 300mm wafer capacity, she said.
Entegris will use the proposed $75 million for a manufacturing facility in Colorado Springs being build in phases, with the first to support production of Front Opening Unified Pods (FOUPs) that are specialized containers for securint wafers as they are transported around large fabs. Today, they are entirely produced abroad, even as Entegris invented them. The second phase will support production of advanced liquid filters and purifiers, along with fluid handling processes. Entegris is partnering with Microchip and several educators on workforce development.
The two proposed awards under CHIPS are small by comparison to the multiple billions for each of several large chip fabs, including Intel ($8.5B), Micron ($6.14B), Samsung ($6.4B) and TSMC ($6.6B). Global Foundries has also received a preliminary grant of $1.5B. In all, $39 billion is designated for fabs that will help the US become semiconductor independent to protect national security.
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At Sensors Converge 2024 last week, a CHIPS official outlined how the $52 billion CHIPS Act funds will break down with $39 billion for fabs, $11 billion for research and $2 billion for a Defense Department Microelectronics Commons network to create pathways for commercialization from ‘lab to fab’.
The R&D portion is designed to “catalize and capture’ the coming set of critical technologies and industry, according to Scott Bukofsky, director of capabilities at the National Semiconductor Technology Center. He outlined CHIPS R&D programs during a 30 minute fireside chat at Sensors. President Biden signed the CHIPS Act into law in August 2022.
The NTSC laid out a roadmap in May, which is expected to receive $5 billion as part of the implementation of the CHIPS Act.
Bukofsky noted the NTSC is opening membership in its Community of Interest in the fall.
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