US finalizes up to $6.75 billion in chips awards for Samsung, Texas Instruments, Amkor:
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it was finalizing an award of up to $4.745 billion to South Korea's Samsung Electronics and up to $1.61 billion for Texas Instruments to expand chip production.
The department also finalized an award of up to $407 million to help fund Amkor Technology's planned $2 billion advanced semiconductor packaging facility in Arizona, which is set to be the largest of its kind in the U.S.
The Samsung award is about $1.7 billion smaller than the preliminary award announced in April of up to $6.4 billion and reflects its revised smaller investment plans, the department said.
A Commerce spokesperson said the department "changed this award to align with market conditions and the scope of the investment the company is making."
[...] Texas Instruments has pledged to invest more than $18 billion through 2029 in two new factories in Texas and one in Utah, which are expected to create 2,000 manufacturing jobs. The company is getting $900 million for its Texas operations and $700 million.
Amkor's Arizona plant when fully operational will pet a nearby Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC facility.
Amkor CEO Giel Rutten said the facility "will serve as a critical cornerstone in establishing a robust semiconductor manufacturing supply chain within the United States."
Congress in August 2022 approved a $39 billion subsidy program for U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and related components along with $75 billion in government lending authority.
Last month, Commerce finalized an award of up to $7.86 billion for Intel down from $8.5 billion announced in March after the California-based chips maker won a separate $3 billion award from the Pentagon.
Commerce has now finalized the largest awards it offered earlier this year, including this week, finalizing up to $458 million for SK Hynix in Indiana. In total, Commerce has finalized over $33 billion of the over $36 billion in proposed incentives funding.
"With this investment in Samsung, the U.S. is now officially the only country on the planet that is home to all five leading-edge semiconductor manufacturers," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Saturday December 28, @03:04AM (2 children)
As far as I can tell, TI's most advanced silicon process is 45 nm and TI shows no interest in improving that. TI claims its areas of concentration are analog and embedded systems. That's fine for solid economics and useful products, but it's not advancing the state of the art. Where TI is advancing practical technology is gallium nitride. TI already has a GaN plant in Japan; I think a new plant for that process is what we'll be paying for here.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Saturday December 28, @03:11AM
Sorry, when I dug deeper I found that TI already has a GaN plant in Texas. They could be expanding that, or some American silicon plant.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Saturday December 28, @08:08PM
In terms of national and commercial security, it's not so much the sexy leading edge fabs, it's the older tech that existing fabs don't want to do because it's not as profitable. When the automobile industry ceased to function because they couldn't get chips, it wasn't 5nm chips they needed, it was the chips that cars actually use, anywhere up to or over 100nm. Those are more tolerant of temperature and voltage anomalies, and (very important!) are cheaper.
I doubt this largesse will do squat for the real needs of industry in general. It will be profitable for the semiconductor industry, though.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Saturday December 28, @01:44PM
Why the big rush to get these bribes, uh I mean "incentives funding", out the door before the inauguration?