(Bloomberg) -- GlobalWafers Co., a Taiwanese manufacturer of silicon wafers used in chip production, is in line to receive $400 million in US government help for projects in Texas and Missouri.
The funding plan, announced Wednesday, is part of the Biden administration’s signature Chips and Science Act. The company plans to invest a total of $4 billion in the initiatives.
It’s the 13th such award from the program, which was set up to deliver $39 billion in grants — plus 25% tax credits and $75 billion in loans and loan guarantees — in order to boost the domestic semiconductor industry. Companies have pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the incentives, a surge that is poised to reshape global supply chains for chips.
Encouraging GlobalWafers to build US manufacturing capacity represents another step toward lessening dependence on Asian production for vital electronic components, said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“We’re creating a new chapter in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States,” she said. The chip industry has become “dangerously concentrated in just one part of the world.”
The investment will support the creation of 2,500 jobs in construction and manufacturing in Sherman, Texas, and St. Peters, Missouri. GlobalWafers will produce standard silicon wafers and more specialized ones that are needed for the production of chips used in defense applications, administration officials said. The Texas project, which is already underway, will be the larger of the two.
A nearby cement kiln project has presented a challenge for the Texas facility, with GlobalWafers warning that it could jeopardize the operations and leave “no choice but to go to court,” according to an April letter from Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. He encouraged the state’s permitting authority not to approve the cement project so that GlobalWafers could proceed.
The Commerce Department declined to comment on the issue. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and lieutenant governor’s offices didn’t return requests for comment.
--With assistance from Ian King.
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