The Department of Defense has awarded $238 million in funding to eight universities and research institutions to establish regional innovation hubs through the Microelectronics Commons program as part of DOD’s implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act.
“The Microelectronics Commons is focused on bridging and accelerating the lab-to-fab transition, that infamous valley of death between R&D and production,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a statement published Wednesday.
In January, DOD launched the Microelectronics Commons program to create a network of local facilities across the U.S. to advance the development of microelectronics prototypes to reduce dependence on other countries for such technology components.
The initiative focuses on six tech areas: secure edge and Internet of Things computing; quantum technology; 5G/6G technology; electromagnetic warfare; artificial intelligence hardware; and commercial leap ahead technologies.
Hicks, a three-time Wash100 awardee, said the department expects the hubs to help incorporate microchips into systems that warfighters use on a daily basis, including aircraft, tanks, ships, long-range munitions, sensors and communications equipment as well as those attritable, autonomous systems that DOD intends to deploy across all domains through the Replicator program.
The awardees and their respective hubs and funding values are as follows:
- Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of Arizona State University for the Southwest Advanced Prototyping or SWAP Hub – $39.8 million
- MMEC for the Midwest Microelectronics Consortium Hub – $24.3 million
- North Carolina State University for the Commercial Leap Ahead for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors or CLAWS Hub – $39.4 million
- The Applied Research Institute for the Silicon Crossroads Microelectronics Commons Hub – $32.9 million
- The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University for the California-Pacific-Northwest AI Hardware or Northwest AI Hub – $15.3 million
- The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative or MassTech for the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub – $19.7 million
- The Research Foundation for the State University of New York for the Northeast Regional Defense Technology or NORDTECH Hub – $40 million
- The University of Southern California for the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub or California DREAMS Hub – $26.9 million