Taiwanese silicon wafer maker GlobalWafers has finalized its CHIPS Act funding award with the US Department of Commerce.
The company will receive $406 million in direct funding which will support the construction of two fabs in Sherman, Texas, and St. Peters, Missouri, for the production of 300-mm wafers and silicon-on-insulator wafers.
The company is also planning to convert its existing silicon epitaxy wafer manufacturing facility in Sherman into a silicon carbide (SiC) epitaxy wafer manufacturing site, producing 150mm and 200mm SiC epitaxy wafers. GlobalWafers is set to invest almost $4 billion in the two projects, which the US government says will create 1,700 construction and 880 manufacturing jobs.
In a statement, Doris Hsu, chairperson and CEO of GlobalWafers, said: “GlobalWafers is proud to be a CHIPS for America participant and the only global producer now building advanced wafer facilities in the United States. Through our new investments announced today, we look forward to innovating with our US-based chip customers for decades to come.”
GlobalWafers is the fifth company to have finalized its CHIPS Act funding agreement with the outgoing Biden administration. In early November, TSMC and GlobalFoundries were awarded $6.6 billion and $1.5 billion respectively in direct funding and later that same month, Intel was awarded $7.865 billion, a reduction to the $8.5 billion in direct funding the chipmaker was preliminarily awarded back in March.
In December, Micron announced it had finalized its agreement with the Department of Commerce to receive $6.165 billion in direct funding under the Act.
Despite Biden’s attempts to secure these agreements in the dying days of his administration, the future of the CHIPS Act is now uncertain as the US and the world gears up for a second Trump presidency. In the run-up to the election, President-elect Trump criticized the CHIPS and Science Act, saying that the government should have levied tariffs on the semiconductor industry instead of handing out grants and loans to chip companies.