President Joe Biden at a groundbreaking ceremony for Intel’s new semiconductor manufacturing site, September 9, 2022, in Licking County, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
Computer chip manufacturer Intel has faced setbacks with its “Silicon Heartland” fab currently under construction outside New Albany, Ohio. But after protracted negotiations, $7.8 billion in federal grants are beginning to flow to Intel projects around the country.
The Ohio fab is in line for up to $1.5 billion of that total.
The 2022 CHIPS Act earmarked more than $52 billion dollars in support of critical industries like semiconductor manufacturing. The legislation is one of three pieces of industrial policy central to the Biden administration’s vision of its legacy.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo argued the legislation “is spurring a renaissance in manufacturing and securing our supply chain so our economy doesn’t come to a standstill because of supply chain disruptions again. And this law is protecting our national security and our economic security by enabling America to once again become a leader in semiconductor production.”
Intel was always likely to be a chief beneficiary of the legislation, but the company has struggled as it attempts to reinvent itself. In October, the chipmaker announced a net loss of $17 billion. The long-awaited grants under the CHIPS Act, are bit less than the $8.5 billion negotiators landed on in the preliminary discussions. But an administration official chalked that up to Intel receiving a separate $3 billion contract to produce chips for the Defense Department.
“We take a look at this from a portfolio level,” he said, “And part of that is how much we’re allocating, company by company and obviously, $11 billion is a huge amount of support.”
Intel’s project in Chandler, AZ, building two fabs and modernizing a third will receive the largest share of funding with up to $3.94 billion of the total. Modernization projects in Oregon and New Mexico will receive up to $1.86 billion and $500 million respectively.
“Because of our grant to Intel,” Raimondo said, “they plan to mass fabricate their most advanced leading edge logic nodes in Arizona and Ohio. They plan to conduct advanced packaging at scale in New Mexico and fortify critical domestic R&D and technology capacity in Oregon.”
“So that means American designed chips being manufactured and packaged by American workers in the United States by an American company for the first time in a very long time,” she added.
Today’s announcement brings their total awards to more than $19 billion of the $39 billion total available, and Raimondo promised additional announcements in the coming weeks.
A senior administration official said at least $1 billion of the Intel award should go out the door before the end the year but couldn’t indicate a breakdown of which projects would receive funding.
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