U.S. Department of Commerce Announces CHIPS Incentives Awards with Corning, Edwards Vacuum, and Infinera

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced it finalized three separate awards under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities. The Department awarded Corning up to $32 million in direct funding, it awarded Edwards Vacuum up to $18 million in direct funding, and it awarded Infinera up to $93 million in direct funding. The awards come after the previously signed preliminary memoranda of terms, announced on November 8, 2024, October 10, 2024, and October 17, 2024, respectively, and the completion of the Department’s due diligence. The Department will disburse the funds based on the companies’ completion of project milestones.

“The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act is a turning point for American innovation and manufacturing that is strengthening our economic and national security,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “The semiconductors that will be manufactured in the United States are foundational to our technological and economic leadership of the 21st century.”

The awards announced today would support the following projects:

Corning: The Department’s award of up to $32 million will enable Corning, one of the largest industrial employers in New York’s North Country region, to increase production of Corning HPFS Fused Silica (High Purity Fused Silica) (HPFS) and EXTREME ULE Glass (Ultra Low Expansion Glass) and scale a novel technology manufacturing process in Canton. HFPS and ULE materials are key components of deep ultraviolet (DUV) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines and photomasks, which are important for the manufacturing of leading-edge semiconductors, and this new technology would improve EUV performance with a lower carbon footprint. This investment in Corning will enable a reliable domestic supply of these important components in the United States and help advance U.S. technology leadership in the lithography supply chain. The project is expected to create 130 manufacturing jobs and over 175 construction jobs. Corning’s project will also be supported by a commitment of up to $7 million by Empire State Development in performance-based Excelsior Jobs Program funding to support the building of computer chips.

Edwards Vacuum: The Department’s award of up to $18 million will support the construction of a greenfield state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Genesee County, New York and will produce dry vacuum pumps, which are needed for semiconductor production, and will create approximately up to 100 construction jobs and up to 500 production jobs. The investment will helpful a reliable domestic supply of important equipment for semiconductor manufacturing and is a meaningful step towards strengthening U.S. economic and national security, as currently, there is no domestic production of semiconductor-grade dry vacuum pumps. These pumps are essential for both advanced and legacy semiconductor fabrication: installed beneath the fab, they maintain the chamber environment where wafers are processed by evacuating toxic fumes and chemicals.

Infinera: The Department’s award of up to $93 million will support the construction of a new fab in San Jose, California, and a new advanced test and packaging facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and is expected to increase Infinera’s existing domestic manufacturing capacity by an estimated factor of 10. Infinera is a vertically integrated photonic semiconductor and telecommunications equipment manufacturer that has operated its U.S. fabrication and advanced test and packaging facilities for over 20 years. As the United States becomes more reliant on larger amounts of data driving increased energy usage, Infinera’s indium phosphide-based photonic integrated circuits (InP PICs) are increasingly important, using light to transfer information with greater energy efficiency. The PICs and optical modules are key components in optical network communications and enable the fast, reliable transfer of large amounts of data communications, spanning short-to long-distance broadband networks connecting cities, countries, and continents; between data centers; and between artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) clusters inside the data center. This investment will create approximately 500 manufacturing jobs and 1,200 construction jobs. 

“Corning is proud to play a vital role in the nation’s efforts to strengthen the domestic semiconductor supply chain,” said Corning Incorporated Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks. “This investment and our continued commitment in Canton will enable us to expand the next-generation manufacturing capabilities necessary for producing critical materials for lithography tools that create the world’s most advanced microchips, reinforcing our commitment to advancing semiconductor manufacturing, technology, and job creation in the United States.”

“We are honored to announce that we have finalized the agreement to receive CHIPS Act funding to increase photonic semiconductor fabrication and packaging in the U.S. and help protect our national security by enabling us to better compete with foreign adversary nations,” said David Heard, Infinera CEO. “This funding will accelerate delivery of U.S. photonic semiconductor innovations to meet the demands of critical network infrastructure in the era of AI.”

In addition, the Department amended the previously announced award to provide a supplemental award of up to $75 million in direct funding to GlobalFoundries.

GlobalFoundries: The Department’s additional award of up to $75 million will support the expansion of the company’s existing Malta facility to provide first-of-its-kind advanced packaging technology and enable for a fully integrated pureplay foundry wafer manufacturing and advanced packaging process flow in the United States. The company’s expanded capabilities will focus on the packaging of photonic integrated circuits, which will enable faster networking and communications to support AI and high-performance compute end markets, in addition to chiplet integration and wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding. Through the company’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, the investment will establish a domestic capability for an end-to-end trusted process flow to meet U.S. national security needs.

As stated in the CHIPS Notice of Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities, CHIPS for America will distribute direct funding to recipients for capital expenditures based on the completion of construction, technology, production, and commercial milestones. The program will track the performance of each CHIPS Incentives Award via financial and programmatic reports, in accordance with the award terms and conditions.