The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the University of Texas at Austin announced Thursday a $1.4 billion, five-year partnership to establish the first U.S. hub for advanced microelectronics manufacturing.
The investment is part of DARPA’s Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing program, or NGMM. The effort will fund the research and equipment to create a domestic center for prototyping cutting-edge fabrication techniques, which DARPA hopes will give the U.S. semiconductor industrial base a leading edge.
Under the agreement, DARPA will provide $840 million, which builds on a $522 million investment from the state of Texas in UT Austin’s Texas Institute for Electronics, which will house the center. The goal is to stand up the new hub by 2029.
“The consortium will leverage partnerships spanning organizations — across the defense industrial base, domestic foundries, vendors and startups, designers and manufacturers, members of academia, and other stakeholders — to achieve a shared vision of national and economic security,” DARPA said in a July 18 statement.
In the past three decades, the U.S. has gone from producing 37% of the global microchip supply to around 12%. Today, Taiwan produces most of the global supply of advanced semiconductors, and China exports a large portion of its microchips to the United States. These chips power everything from cell phones to cars to the F-35 fighter jet.
DARPA has been working to strengthen the domestic microelectronics industrial and research base since the 1980s and more recently has committed nearly $5 billion through its Electronics Resurgence Initiative, or ERI. The effort includes several programs designed to tackle key technological barriers facing commercial industry and national security agencies.
NGMM is part of that work. The new center will focus on 3D heterogeneously integrated microsystems, or 3DHI — an advanced approach to microelectronics fabrication. The premise of 3DHI research is that by integrating and packaging chip components differently, manufacturers could disaggregate functions like memory and processing to significantly improve performance.
“This accessibility to researchers from academia, government, and industry will break down silos and foster an ecosystem that enhances the U.S. competitive advantage,” Whitney Mason, the head of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office, said in the statement.
The five-year effort is split into two phases. During Phase 1, the university will establish the center’s foundational capabilities and infrastructure. In Phase 2, the facility will begin manufacturing the 3DHI prototypes and will work with DARPA to fund design challenges.
In a statement, UT Austin said its microelectronics consortium today includes 32 defense and commercial electronics companies and 18 academic institutions.
DARPA’s announcement follows Congress’ 2022 passage of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, or CHIPS Act. The measure provided nearly $52 billion for near-term efforts to improve microelectronics workforce, research and development, and manufacturing across the United States.
DARPA did not receive CHIPS funding to support the NGMM hub, but Mason noted that its goals are aligned with and bolstered by the initiative.
“We can’t overstate need for constant and unwavering forward momentum in microelectronics capabilities,” she said. “The CHIPS Act’s near-term emphasis can help reinforce NGMM’s work toward realizing the next major wave of microelectronics innovation.”
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
