CHIPS Program Commercial Fabrication Facilities Funding Opportunity

The CHIPS Program Office’s first funding opportunity seeks applications for projects involving the construction, expansion, or modernization of commercial facilities for the fabrication of leading-edge, current-generation, and mature-node semiconductors. This includes both front-end wafer fabrication and back-end assembly, testing, and packaging.

The funding opportunity will provide direct funding (through grants, cooperative agreements, or other transactions), loans, and loan guarantees. There is no fixed amount for how much a project can receive in direct funding. Instead, the CHIPS Program Office will determine the direct funding amount through rigorous evaluation and analysis of the project’s expected returns, among other factors. Most direct funding awards are generally expected to range between 5-15% of project capital expenditures.

There is also no fixed limit on the loans or loan guarantees that a project may receive. Applicants can request loans or loan guarantees to provide debt financing that is not available on comparable terms on the private market, and the specific terms will be based on a project’s financing requirements and risk profile.

A single application can result in an award that contains more than one type of incentive. The CHIPS Program Office generally expects that the total amount of an award, inclusive of direct funding and the principal amount of a loan or loan guarantee, will not exceed 35% of project capital expenditures.

Eligibility

CHIPS awards are meant to complement—rather than crowd out—private investment and other sources of funding, and applicants are highly encouraged to bring capital to the table.

Applicants will have to demonstrate that the funding requested will incentivize investments in facilities and equipment in the United States that would not occur in the absence of the incentives. In addition, applicants are required to have been offered an incentive from a state or local government and are encouraged to claim the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit, a separate incentive administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service that provides a federal income tax credit for qualifying capital investments in a facility for which the primary purpose is the manufacturing of semiconductors or semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

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