Samsung is the latest chipmaker to benefit from CHIPS and Science Act funds, with the US Commerce Department today announcing the Korean megacorporation is getting $6.4 billion in funding to expand its Texas operations. 

In a statement published today by the Commerce Department, which is managing the billions of dollars being doled out to the semiconductor industry as part of the CHIPS Act, the agency said Samsung and the Biden administration have signed a non-binding agreement to hand over the aforementioned funds in order to trigger an additional $40b investment by Samsung in Texas. 

 "This announcement will unleash over $40 billion in investment from Samsung, and cement central Texas's role as a state-of-the-art semiconductor ecosystem, creating at least 21,500 jobs and leveraging up to $40 million in CHIPS funding to train and develop the local workforce," President Biden said of the funding agreement. 

Samsung has indicated to the Commerce Department that it plans to make use of the Treasury Department's Investment Tax Credit to cover up to a quarter of its qualified capital expenditures on its new Texas projects. 

The new funds will be used to expand Samsung's operations in two Texas cities: Austin, and its nearby suburb of Taylor. 

Samsung has had a presence in Austin for decades, and the $6.4b will be used to expand its facilities there to support the production of fully depleted silicon-on-insulator technology for critical US industries. The Austin deal also includes commitments from Samsung to partner with the US Department of Defense on unspecified projects. 

In Taylor, where Samsung has been busy building several chip fabs that have been running over budget in recent years, the CHIPS Act funds will be helping it build several facilities. Per the Commerce Department, Samsung will use the funds in Taylor to "construct a comprehensive advanced manufacturing ecosystem, ranging from leading-edge logic to advanced packaging to R&D." 

That comprehensive ecosystem will include two "leading edge logic foundry fabs" that will produce 4nm and 2nm chips, and R&D fab focused on new chips "generations ahead" of what's currently in production and a packaging facility for producing 3D High Bandwidth Memory and 2.5D packaging. 

This is the second major award the Biden administration has announced for an APAC-based semiconductor manufacturer in recent weeks. Last week the Commerce Department announced $6.6b in funding for TSMC's fab projects in Arizona, and an additional allowance for up to $5b in loans to help cover costs for the Taiwanese chipmaker. 

Like Samsung's work in Texas, TSMC's set of three fabs being built in Arizona are also facing delays for some of the same reasons: Inflation is driving up costs for both materials and labor. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/04/15/samsung_snags_64b_in_chips/