The US Commerce Department announced a joint research and development arrangement with Alphabet Inc’s Google to build chips that would be used by researchers to develop new nanotechnology and semiconductor technologies.
Google and the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) inked the agreement. SkyWater Technology, a semiconductor business based in Bloomington, Minnesota, will manufacture the chips, according to the department.
According to the deal, Google will pay the initial cost of starting up production and will subsidise the first production run. The circuitry for the chips will be designed by NIST in collaboration with university research partners.
The Chips and Science Act, proposed by Vice President Biden, was just passed by Congress and signed into law. It permits funds to jump-start domestic semiconductor manufacture in response to supply-chain disruptions.
A slew of firms have announced new semiconductor plants as a result of the legislation, which approved $52 billion in government subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production and research, as well as a $24 billion investment tax credit for chip plants.
“The NIST expects to create up to 40 distinct semiconductors optimised for diverse uses.” Because the chip designs will be open source, researchers will be free to investigate new ideas and openly share data and device designs, according to a statement from the Commerce Department.
The University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Brown University, and Carnegie Mellon University are among the research partners who contributed to the chip designs, according to the release.
The agreement’s financial terms were not disclosed.
