Texas semiconductor consortium grants 0.8 billion40 million dollars from US Department of Defense Research

　The semiconductor consortium “Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE)” in Texas, USA, announced on 7/18 that it will receive a grant of 0.8 billion40 million dollars from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Note 1). TIE has established research and development and prototyping facilities for semiconductors with open access, and the Department of Defense (DOD) aims to develop higher performance, lower output, lightweight, and miniaturized defense systems for use in radars, satellite images, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc. The facility will be open to industry, academia, and government, and it is expected that it will promote dual-use (dual-use) innovation that supports both the defense industry and the semiconductor industry.

TIE is a consortium supported by the University of Texas at Austin. The members are state governments/local governments, outstanding semiconductor/defense companies, research institutes under the federal government, and educational institutions recognized across the United States, and it was established in 2021. Under the Next Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing Program (NGMM), DARPA will cooperate with the University of Texas at Austin and TIE to advance the development of the 3D Heterointegration Alliance (3DHI) (Note 2). According to the 5-year plan, facility infrastructure etc. will be developed in the first 2 and a half years, and 3DHI hardware prototype manufacturing and manufacturing processes will be automated in the next 2 and a half years.

TIE's strategic partners include six major Japanese and American semiconductor-related companies, such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Applied Materials, Canon, Intel, Micron Technology, and Resonac, and RTX (formerly Raytheon) of the US aviation and defense system.

(Note 1) Additionally, the State of Texas has separately subsidized 0.5 billion 52 million dollars to TIE to modernize semiconductor-related facilities at the University of Texas at Austin. When the current grants from DARPA are combined, the total amount of grants has risen to 1.4 billion dollars.

(Note 2) Packaging disparate devices such as CPUs, memories, and sensors in an integrated manner.