All That and a Bag of CHIPS: Commerce Department Prepares to Open Third Round of CHIPS Act Funding for R&D for Semiconductor Advanced Packaging

On July 9, 2024, the CHIPS Research and Development Office released a Notice of Intent (NOI) to announce a third CHIPS Act Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), which will be the first focused on the CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program.  The NOFO will provide up to $1.6 billion for research and development activities in five areas of semiconductor advanced packaging, including (1) equipment, tools, processes and process integration; (2) power delivery and thermal management; (3) connector technology like photonics and radio frequency; (4) the chiplets ecosystem; and (5) co-design/electronic design automation.  The NOFO is expected to include prototype development opportunities in exemplar applications including high-performance computing and low-power systems needed for artificial intelligence.  The NOI also provides information about eligibility expectations and other anticipated requirements for applications.

Key Takeaways

Interested applicants should review the NOI and submit clarifying questions to the CHIPS Research and Development Office.  Potential applicants should also monitor CHIPS announcements for the official NOFO release, as concept papers will be due approximately 60 days later.