The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced federal funding of up to $160 million for a consortium of nearly a hundred entities within Oregon. The federal grant is aimed at supporting initiatives geared at facilitating the state’s efforts towards enhancing the semiconductor industry within Oregon and the broader United States.
The program under which the funding will be provided is dubbed FAST (Frontiers of Advanced Semiconductor Technology), and the Oregon-based cluster is led by Oregon State University (OSU). It is composed of higher education institutions, semiconductor industry companies, community organizations, government entities, and trade organizations. The purpose of this consortium is to advance prosperity and innovation.
In total, there are a dozen such innovation engines in the country, and the Oregon FAST Engine has been earmarked for that major funding that will be spread out over a decade. The funds will be released in installments and each subsequent release will depend on the progress that has been made in building and scaling innovation clusters that demonstrate the potential to advance critical technologies that can not only improve regional competitiveness but also advance American leadership in the semiconductor industry.
With this funding, the OSU-led FAST Engine will not only identify needed innovations within the semiconductor industry but also accelerate the rapid translation of research into practical application in the field.
The grant will also help the participating entities to grow a pipeline of the highly skilled talent needed to address the science and technological personnel gaps that the industry faces in its quest for global success.
The grant will also provide ways to de-risk startups in the semiconductor industry by quickly nurturing the necessary linkages between investors, entrepreneurs and companies operating within the semiconductor industry. In this way, the time it takes from identifying an innovative solution to the time that solution is market-ready will be collapsed.
The CTO of Intel, Pushkar Ranade, welcomed the funding to OSU and its partners. He said the next wave of tech breakthroughs will depend on targeted investment across the different segments of the semiconductor ecosystem like manufacturing, talent development and research. He added that OSU’s leadership is helping to accelerate progress in this ecosystem on a large scale.
The teams working on different projects under the partnership have clearly set milestones that they must progressively meet before qualifying for the $160m maximum funding level earmarked under the federal grant program.
It remains to be seen whether the seed that has been planted with the award of this grant will result in Oregon-linked startups that grow to rival industry giants like Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA).
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