US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on Monday said that most chips companies seeking government subsidies would get significantly less than they have sought, as the US government received requests for more than double the US$28 billion it plans to award.
More than 600 companies in leading-edge chips manufacturing — which include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co — have requested more than US$70 billion, Raimondo said.
The department is engaged in tough ongoing negotiations with individual companies, she said.
Photo: Reuters
She said her conversations with chip company CEOs typically include them asking for billions in government assistance, which she says is reasonable.
“I tell them you will be lucky to get half of that,” she said.
When they come in to finalize a deal, “where they get less than half of what they wanted and they tell me they are not feeling lucky. That’s the reality... We have to be tough with companies,” she said.
The department is prioritizing projects that will be operational by 2030, Raimondo said.
“We are saying ‘no’ for now” for longer-range projects, she said.
The department estimates the funding would ensure the US produces 20 percent of the world’s leading-edge logic chips by 2030, up from zero today, she said.
The US$52.7 billion fund provided by the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act, which was approved by the US Congress in August 2022, includes a US$39 billion program to subsidize chip production and related supply chain investments, and the awards would help build factories and increase production.
Earlier this month, Raimondo said that the department would award a US$1.5 billion grant to GlobalFoundries Inc, the first major award.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS