President Biden signed an Executive Order to implement the semiconductor funding in the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
The order establishes an interagency CHIPS Implementation Steering Council, which will be co-chaired by National Economic Director Brian Deese, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and the Acting Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Alondra Nelson.
The order also establishes six primary priorities to guide implementation across the federal government:
- Protect taxpayer dollars. The CHIPS program will include rigorous review of applications along with robust compliance and accountability requirements to ensure taxpayer funds are protected and spent wisely.
- Meet economic and national security needs. The CHIPS program must address economic and national security risks by building domestic capacity that reduces U.S. reliance on vulnerable or overly concentrated foreign production for both leading-edge and mature microelectronics, and increasing United States economic productivity and competitiveness. U.S. long-term economic and national security requires a sustainable, competitive domestic industry.
- Ensure long-term leadership in the sector. The CHIPS program will establish a dynamic, collaborative network for semiconductor research and innovation to enable long-term U.S. leadership in the industries of the future. The program will support a diversity of technologies and applications along many stages of product and process development.
- Strengthen and expand regional manufacturing and innovation clusters. Long-term competitiveness requires large economies of scale and investments across the supply chain. Regional clusters containing manufacturing facilities, suppliers, basic and translational research, and workforce programs, along with supporting infrastructure, will be the foundation for a competitive industry. The CHIPS program will facilitate the expansion, creation and coordination of semiconductor manufacturing and innovation clusters that benefit many companies.
- Catalyze private sector investment. A successful CHIPS program will respond to market signals, fill market gaps and reduce investment risk to attract significant private capital. The role of government in the CHIPS program is to shift financial incentives to maximize large-scale private investment in production, break-through technologies, and workers. The CHIPS program will encourage new ecosystem partnerships that reduce risk, build on U.S. strengths, and facilitate such investments.
- Generate benefits for a broad range of stakeholders and communities. A successful CHIPS program will create benefits for startups, workers, socially and economically disadvantaged (SEDI) businesses, including minority-owned, veteran-owned and women-owned businesses and rural businesses, universities and colleges, and state and local economies, in addition to supporting semiconductor companies. The CHIPS program will encourage linkages to underserved regions and populations to draw in new participants to the semiconductor ecosystem.
Biden signs CHIPS and Science Act
by James E. CarrollPresident Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which aims to onshore domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and to substantially increase government funding for science and technology development programs, including the networking and telecommunications fields. The legislation provides $54.2 billion in total appropriations for CHIPS and Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation (also known as ORAN), and $82.5 billion…