US to award HP $50 million for semiconductor tech project

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday it plans to award $50 million to HP to support the expansion and modernization of an existing company facility in Oregon that will boost key semiconductor technologies.

The proposed funding will support technologies that serve life sciences instrumentation and technology hardware used in artificial intelligence applications and other projects, the department said.

Congress in August 2022 approved a $39 billion subsidy program for U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and related components along with $75 billion in government lending authority and a 25% investment tax credit worth an estimated $24 billion.

The projects build on HP’s expertise in microfluidics and microelectromechanical systems with funding set to support manufacturing of silicon devices critical in life sciences lab equipment used in drug discovery, singlecell research, and cell line development.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the proposed $50 million funding for the Corvallis, Oregon, HP campus "shows how we are investing in every part of the semiconductor supply chain and how important semiconductor technology is to innovation in drug discovery and critical life science equipment."

The department said the technology will boost partner institutions including Harvard Medical School, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Merck.

HP CEO Enrique Lores said the funding "provides HP with an opportunity to modernize and expand our facility to further invest in our microfluidics technology."

The department has announced term sheets with 17 companies offering more than $32 billion in grants and up to $29 billion in loans.

It also made other major planned awards including $6.4 billion to South Korea's Samsung to expand chip production in Texas.

Intel won $8.5 billion in grants in March while Taiwan's TSMC clinched $6.6 billion to build out its American production and memory chip maker Micron Technology won $6.1 billion to help fund domestic chip factory projects.

All the awards have yet to be finalized and amounts could change after the Commerce Department conducts due diligence.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Miral Fahmy)

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