In the last days of its activity, the outgoing US administration did not forget about companies that were counting on receiving financial support from the state in the construction of new enterprises in the country. Chip Act subsidies were awarded to GlobalFoundries, Corning, Edwards Vacuum and Infinera.
Image source: GlobalFoundries
The first company will receive $75 million to expand its existing chip testing and packaging facility in New York State using advanced technology. These funds will be used to commission additional packaging lines for solutions used in the field of photonics for high-speed information transfer. In addition, such production facilities are focused on the use of chiplets and hybrid interconnection of silicon wafers. Since GlobalFoundries has an agreement with the US Department of Defense, the company’s new production facilities could be useful to the American state to develop its defense sector.
At the same time, GlobalFoundries announced the construction of a new research center adjacent to its facility in New York State. He will focus on developing new methods for packaging chips. Particular attention will be paid to the development of silicon photonics, which provides a significant increase in data transfer rates. In the new center, GlobalFoundries will also develop technologies that will be useful to customers from the US defense and aerospace sectors. The three-dimensional layout of the chips will be improved and adapted to the capabilities of GlobalFoundries itself in the field of working with the 12LP+ and 22FDX technical processes, which are quite mature by the standards of the global industry.
To create a new research center, GlobalFoundries itself is ready to spend $575 million at the initial stage, as well as $186 million over ten years for subsequent development. This will create at least 100 new jobs in New York State over the next five years. The state authorities will provide $20 million for the creation of the center; they previously allocated $550 million for the development of the GlobalFoundries business as a whole. The company will also receive $75 million from the US Department of Commerce under the CHIP Act.
Along the way, three more companies received guarantees from the US Department of Commerce to provide subsidies for business development in various states. Glass coating maker Corning will receive $32 million to expand its production of materials used in EUV lithography systems and photomasks in New York State. An additional $7 million will be provided by the state.
Edwards Vacuum will receive $18 million in grants to build a facility in New York state that will focus on producing dry-type vacuum pumps used in chip manufacturing. In addition to 100 jobs during construction, the company will create 500 permanent manufacturing jobs. Pumps of this type are used in chip manufacturing plants to remove toxic gases and fumes.
Finally, $93 million in subsidies will go to Infinera, which specializes in the production of solutions in the field of integrated photonics using indium phosphide. Such components are used for high-speed information transfer in telecommunications and server equipment; they are important for the development of infrastructure for artificial intelligence systems. The company will build a new chip manufacturing facility in California and a component testing and packaging facility in Pennsylvania. These steps will be aimed at increasing Infinera’s production volumes in the United States ten times from the current level.