US plans $75 million grant to Absolics for advanced chip packaging

SK

23/05/2024 10:00

By David Shepardson
       WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - The US Commerce
Department said on Thursday it plans to grant $75 million to
Absolics for constructing a 120,000-square-foot facility in
Georgia that will supply advanced materials to the country's
semiconductor industry.
    The planned award to the semiconductor packaging provider,
an affliate of SKC Co, which in turn is part of South Korea's
second-largest conglomerate SK Group  034730.KS , is to come
from the U.S. government's $52.7 billion U.S. semiconductor
chips manufacturing and subsidy fund.
    The funds will develop technology for advanced packaging,
marking the first commercial facility to support the
semiconductor supply chain with a new advanced material.
    The Commerce Department said the award will also support
1,000 construction jobs and 200 manufacturing and R&D jobs in
Covington, Georgia.
    Absolics’ glass substrate allows for processing and memory
chips to be packed into a single device allowing for faster,
more efficient computing.
    The company, which was created in 2021, broke ground on the
Georgia plant in November 2022. Applied Materials  AMAT.O  is an
investor.
    CEO Jun Rok Oh said in a statement the proposed funding will
allow the company "to fully commercialize our pioneering glass
substrate technology for use in high-performance computing and
cutting-edge defense applications."
    The Commerce Department said glass substrates from Absolics
will be used to boost performance of leading-edge chips for AI
and data centers.
        Last month, SK Hynix  000660.KS , 
    the world's second-largest memory chip maker,
     said it would invest $3.87 billion to build an advanced
packaging plant and R&D facility for AI products in Indiana.
  
    U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who previously noted
the advanced packaging substrates market is currently
concentrated in Asia, has made advanced packaging a priority and
said last year "the U.S. will develop multiple high-volume
advanced packaging facilities."
    In November, the Commerce Department disclosed details of
its plans to spend $3 billion in support of advanced packaging.
    The same month, Amkor Technology  AMKR.O  said it would
spend $2 billion to build a new advanced packaging and test
facility in Arizona that will package and test chips for Apple
 AAPL.O  produced at a nearby Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC  2330.TW 
facility.
    That department recently announced several major proposed
awards from the chips program including $8.5 billion in grants
for Intel  INTC.O , $6.6 billion for TSMC, $6.4 billion for
South Korea's Samsung  005930.KS  and $6.1 billion for memory
chip maker Micron Technology  MU.O .    

 (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Nivedita
Bhattacharjee)
 ((David.Shepardson@thomsonreuters.com; 2028988324;))