Semiconductors
The Rochester/Finger Lakes region is part of a federally designated Tech Hub for expanding semiconductor technology and manufacturing.
CEIS supports Tech Hub and Semiconductor Superhighway
Semiconductors are key to our regional, national, and global economy. They are at the heart of all electronic devices, from toys and appliances to medical devices and automobiles. They also help power the internet and are critical to our national defense.
CEIS has heavily supported semiconductor manufacturing and related supply chains in the Rochester/Finger Lakes region. This was elevated by the federal designation of the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region as a Tech Hub for semiconductors by the U.S. Economic Development Agency.
Semiconductor Superhighway
The Tech Hub designation, by way of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, spans the three cities along the New York State Thruway and has inspired the name of “Semiconductor Superhighway.
The University of Rochester and RIT were instrumental in this designation and the ongoing efforts to build a semiconductor cluster in the Finger Lakes region.
The act allocated $53 billion for semiconductor research and worker training programs, as well as a 25 percent tax credit and additional federal incentives. A key intent of the act is to encourage semiconductor manufacturing in the United States after several decades of the technology being developed in other countries, often by way of individual companies offshoring the technology and manufacturing.
The CHIPS Act also provides $39 billion in direct support for companies building manufacturing plants in the United States, plus another $11 billion for R&D.
Two companies along the Semiconductor Superhighway leading the onshoring are Micron Technology, which is investing $100 billion to create multiple semiconductor manufacturing plants in the Syracuse area over the next 20 years, and Edwards Vacuum in Genesee County, which is building a plant to produce vacuum pumps for the industry.
Semiconductor Packaging Cluster
At the federal level the CHIPS and Science Act was led by Senator Charles Schumer and strongly supported by Rep. Joseph Morelle, to bolster U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and protect the nation from being overly reliant on foreign chip production. The acronym CHIPS stands for Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors.
Recognizing these developments, CEIS has been leading an effort to establish Rochester as a major hub for semiconductor packaging — in collaboration with the University of Rochester, RIT, Greater Rochester Enterprise, AIM, Photonics, and NextCorps.
Much of the focus of the CHIPS Act is on IC fabrication, which takes place in large cleanroom factories. But ICs cannot be used until they are packaged to protect the sensitive circuitry from the environment and provide an interface to printed circuit boards (PCBs).
Semiconductor packaging, and in particular IC substrates, are seen as the Achilles Heel of the U.S. semiconductor industry. The United States has a virtually non-existent semiconductor packaging presence, including manufacturing of IC substrates, which are the interface between the IC and the PCB and an increasingly critical part of the semiconductor industry.
Rochester has the core assets that make it a logical place to establish a semiconductor packaging cluster. For sourcing technology as well as well-trained employees there are three colleges: URochester and RIT, leading research universities with large engineering programs, and Monroe Community College which has two advanced manufacturing programs.
Rochester also has a large manufacturing base, an entrepreneur ecosystem anchored by NextCorps, and physical infrastructure, including Eastman Business Park and STAMP in Genesee County. Rochester also has the TAP facility, which is the only federally funded center for integrated photonics packaging in the nation.
These combined resources make Rochester one of the most desirable places in the country for packaging companies to locate.
CEIS Supports Semiconductor Research
One of the leading principal investigators funded by CEIS is Karl Hirschman, PhD, Micron Professor of Microelectronic Engineering at RIT and faculty director of the Semiconductor Nanofabrication Laboratory at RIT since 2001.
He has collaborated with Corning — one of CEIS’s leading partners — on thin-film transistors on glass, silicon-on-glass technology, and advanced display electronics. Over the last two decades Hirschman has been awarded five grants for his work with Corning on thin-film transistors and micro LED displays on glass.
This research into thin-film transistors at the intersection of Corning and RIT illustrates the importance of CEIS and university-industry partnerships to advance the rapidly expanding semiconductor industry.