Remarks as prepared.
Thank you. It is a great honor for me to be able to provide today’s plenary lecture and to be part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the National Academy of Engineering. The NAE’s mission to advance the welfare and prosperity of the nation resonates deeply with me both as a bioengineer and a public servant.
I am also very excited about the theme of this year’s meeting “reimagining supply chains for national resiliency,” as this topic touches on so much of what the scientists, engineers, and program managers at NIST are focused on bringing about. I look forward to sharing with you the tremendous work that NIST has been doing to empower innovation for a more resilient future, and to highlight what we as a nation must continue to do moving forward.
When I took over leadership of NIST it was clear that the U.S. was in a fierce international competition around technologies like AI, quantum, and biotechnology, which are having and will have significant impact on our economic competitiveness and national security.
The U.S. has a strong university system and has continued to lead in many areas of research and innovation in these and other technology areas. But unfortunately, we became complacent as a nation, and exposed ourselves to significant vulnerabilities that hinder our ability to fully capture the benefit of technologies invented here.
As other countries expanded their manufacturing base and built up highly skilled technical workforces with localized supply chains, we saw the opposite: A steady erosion and decline of the U.S.-based manufacturing base and with it, a decline in the U.S. base of highly skilled technical workers.
With ready access to just about any product one could imagine, we became lulled into a false sense of security despite being dependent on a highly dispersed and globalized supply chain optimized for profit and efficiency — and increasingly vulnerable to disruption.
We all saw these vulnerabilities exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic with its economic consequences.
Just think back to only years ago, we were vaccinated and starting to venture out more. Many of us took advantage of historically low interest rates to renovate homes that now served as offices, school rooms, and movie theaters for growing families. If you could find a contractor, you may have balked at much higher prices and longer lead times for materials. Or perhaps you tried to buy a new car, or a new appliance, but none were available as they sat unfinished waiting for various components.
The entire global supply chain had been disrupted by a combination of pandemic-related economic downturns. Add on natural and man-made disasters that shut down factories, overwhelmed ports, and disrupted global markets.
At the heart of so many of these disruptions were semiconductor chips, essential components in virtually every technology and product upon which almost every aspect of our lives today depends.
Many of us asked ourselves, why doesn’t America, where the semiconductor was invented, have a steady and secure supply of them — to power medical devices, to get the appliances and the cars that we want, and to protect our national security?
While the United States led the world for many years in the design and manufacture of these critical devices, our leadership role had languished. In 1990, we made 37% of the world’s semiconductors in America; in 2021, that figure was down to just 12%.
While other countries were investing in their own semiconductor industries, the U.S. was not. And that lack of investment had a notable impact. From 2010 to 2020, 122 major fabs were built around the world, just 17 were built in the United States.
Addressing this decline and fixing these glaring supply chain vulnerabilities required bold action.
As the U.S. had done so many times before, like with the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program, or the Human Genome Initiative, we placed a big bet on science and technology, this time to reclaim our position as the global leader in advanced semiconductor electronics through the creation and passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.
This pivotal bill provided the Department of Commerce $39 billion dollars to incentivize semiconductor manufacturers and their suppliers to build, expand, and modernize manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. And it provided $11 billion for the department to invest in a portfolio of R&D programs to create a dynamic new network of innovation for the semiconductor ecosystem in the United States.
With these once-in-a-generation resources, we quickly began to rebuild American semiconductor manufacturing capacity. And we began to lay the foundation for an enduring capability to once again innovate and advance this field in order to protect America’s economic and national security.
First, we knew had to build our domestic capacity to manufacture chips.
In an incredibly short time frame we hired experts from the semiconductor industry, financial services, policy and strategy, researchers and scientists, and so many more to stand this program up and implement it at full speed. It is a truly world-class team.
We created a bespoke and highly iterative application process that enabled our experts to determine how proposed projects would meet the economic and national security needs of our country, while also ensuring that the projects were financially strong, with real customers ready to purchase new chips coming off the line.
In just two years we have successfully executed the largest piece of this program: We’ve announced over $36 billion in proposed direct funding and more than $28 billion in proposed loans so far — and we have dozens more announcements to go. We are working as fast as we can to finalize these deals.
The scale of our U.S. ecosystem is now unprecedented. The total public and private investment from just the leading-edge companies will equal roughly $400 billion between now and the end of the decade — far and away the most investment in new production in the history of the U.S. semiconductor industry.
And we have a diversity of technology that we have not had in decades. With Intel, TSMC, Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix, we now have all five global leading-edge semiconductor manufacturers aggressively expanding on our shores. No other economy in the world has more than two of these companies producing leading-edge chips within its borders.
And we are bringing the world’s most advanced technology to the U.S. as well. Intel, TSMC, and Samsung will each produce its variation on “2 nanometer” technology, the most advanced node currently on a path to commercialization. Micron will produce the most advanced memory technologies in the world, including the high-bandwidth memory chips critical for AI.
We have also announced agreements with four high-volume advanced packaging projects, which will bring significant new technology and know-how to American shores.
All of these achievements are dramatically increasing our capacity to make chips here. And we have much more on the horizon; we have begun to announce preliminary agreements with suppliers, and we will be funding dozens of smaller scale projects to fortify the supply chain for the fabs and minimize future disruptions.
Now … prior to 2022 and the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. produced 0% of the world’s leading-edge chips. But now, after these proposed investments, we’ve changed the global landscape: According to a recent report from the Semiconductor Industry Association, the U.S. is on pace to grow its share of global logic manufacturing to 28% by 2032.
And as we build capacity to manufacture, we know that we must also refresh and rejuvenate our capability to invent and to innovate the next several generations of semiconductor technology with R&D.
As all of us gathered here understand, innovation is essential to protecting technological leadership. It was U.S. innovation that built this industry in the first place, decades ago, but along with our semiconductor manufacturing capacity, we must also shore up our research infrastructure in this field.
The $11 billion that Congress provided for R&D is a significant federal commitment that will provide industry-relevant and purpose-built capability to:
Through the CHIPS R&D program at NIST we are making investments in research infrastructure that do not exist anywhere in the world today. For example, no country has invested at the scale and scope needed to unlock the enormous potential of digital twin technology for our industry.
Until now.
CHIPS for America will award approximately $285 million dollars in a CHIPS Manufacturing USA institute dedicated to digital twins for semiconductors. Digital twins are virtual mimics of what you see in the real world — like a virtual chip, a virtual manufacturing process or a virtual factory floor. Digital twins enable collaborative design and process development by engineers and researchers across the country. They will create new opportunities for participation, speed innovation, and reduce the costs of breakthrough research and development.
We are also leveraging a century of technological expertise here at NIST to solve some of the industry’s most complicated measurement challenges. In the month after the bill became law, working closely with industry, we identified seven grand challenges that require critical advances in measurement science to achieve the next generation of breakthroughs in semiconductor development and manufacturing.
For iexample, industry told us that it is getting more and more difficult to measure the quality and functionality of smaller and smaller devices particularly as single features are at the atomic scale and packaged devices are now built in 3D. In the past year, we have funded more than 50 teams on 34 projects with more than $130 million committed to address these measurement challenges.
We know we need to bring every resource that the country has available to meet the challenge, and this includes the world-class innovators in small businesses. Just last week we announced nearly $5 million to 17 small businesses across nine states under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. These awards will fast-track the development and deployment of technologies needed to measure, monitor, predict, and ensure quality in manufacturing more complex, smaller, and multi-layered devices. This effort will help build up the domestic small businesses that may one day become the next great American company.
One of the most important supply chain vulnerabilities being addressed by the CHIPS R&D program is the domestic deficit in advanced packaging. NIST is committed to making the U.S. a world leader in advanced packaging, which is critical to the future of the semiconductor industry.
Advanced packaging can lead to incredible gains in system performance and function. Advanced packaging can also enable reduced physical footprints, lower power consumption, and potentially decrease costs.
Our R&D efforts here in advanced packaging will heavily focus on high-demand emerging applications like high-performance computing and low- power electronics, both needed to enable our continued leadership in AI.
The National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program, or NAPMP will soon award $300 million in projects to develop the next-generation materials necessary for a robust packaging industry.
These projects are just the beginning. NIST also released a notice of intent to invest up to $1.6 billion in an open competition for new advanced packaging R&D activities to establish and accelerate domestic capacity in this space.
This funding will be directed toward five additional R&D areas critical to realizing advanced packaging innovation, ranging from innovations in equipment, tools, and processes, to the Chiplet ecosystem. We have a very ambitious agenda in this large funding opportunity. But our nation and our critical emerging industries, like AI, need fast results with an aggressive eye to the future and keeping America competitive.
The technical requirements to build this advanced packaging ecosystem will be challenging. We need teams that collaborate across the innovation, manufacturing, supply chain, and customer landscape, as well as across the industry, non-profit, and academic sectors — because modern engineering is not a solo sport. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity that will push our industry farther than we’ve ever gone before — together.
Finally, another critical piece of our efforts to strengthen our innovative capabilities in semiconductors and other advanced microelectronic technologies, is the National Semiconductor Technology Center, (NSTC). This membership organization will convene participants across industry, customers, suppliers, educational institutions, entrepreneurs, and investors to accelerate the pace of new innovations from idea to marketplace.
The NSTC will be vital to addressing critical gaps in the current ecosystem. It will become a hub for the brightest minds to collaborate and solve the industry’s most challenging problems.
Members of the NSTC will gain unparalleled access to partners, an investment fund, and a wealth of additional resources and funding opportunities.
As you know, the organizational structure of the NSTC includes the establishment of a purpose-built nonprofit that operates the NSTC on behalf of the government. That operator is Natcast. This structure is unique for government. But, as informed by stakeholders, we wanted to help build something from the ground up that could be sustained for decades to benefit U.S. innovation.
The initial set of opportunities for the community are already rolling out and are laying the groundwork for the much larger efforts to come.
First, Natcast announced that it will be awarding up to $30 million across multiple projects to advance AI-based tools to improve design productivity for radio frequency integrated circuits. We anticipate that fully harnessing AI for use in the semiconductor design space can shorten the time from identification of a problem to a fully working design. These awards will come in the fall. And there are more research funding opportunities coming out of Natcast soon.
Second, the NSTC Workforce Partner Alliance program will make more than $11 million in awards for 10 high-impact awards to create or expand workforce initiatives addressing critical U.S. job and skill gaps across semiconductor design, manufacturing, and production.
This is part of our commitment to invest hundreds of millions in the NSTC’s workforce efforts, including the creation of a Workforce Center of Excellence. We just launched the Center of Excellence, and the Department of Commerce expects to invest $250 million in its efforts.
And recently, we announced a memorandum of understanding with the National Science Foundation to jointly invest in a new initiative to train the future semiconductor workforce.
But the NSTC isn’t just a funding organization. It will be the gateway for members to access state-of-the-art facilities that will support and extend U.S. leadership in semiconductor research, design, engineering, advanced manufacturing, and workforce development.
Last month, the Department and Natcast kicked off the process to select three CHIPS for America R&D facilities.
The facilities include a combined NSTC Prototyping and NAPMP Advanced Packaging Piloting Facility, an NSTC Administrative and Design Facility, and an NSTC Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Center.
When fully operational, these three state-of-the art facilities will establish world-class destinations for advanced semiconductor R&D in the United States.
Clearly the work that NIST is doing in CHIPS will help rebuild our capacity in semiconductor manufacturing and position us to continue to lead in the development of next-generation semiconductor technologies. The CHIPS and Science Act is really focused on ensuring we fix the last several decades when American technology leadership slipped from its perch.
To continue to be competitive in emerging technologies like AI, or quantum, or biotechnology, we must make sure the same thing does not happen again, and I’d like to highlight some of the efforts NIST is undertaking to make sure that is the case.
Quantum is one area that I have been prioritizing at NIST. Years of research into the phenomena of quantum physics have given us the tools to better understand how the universe works, and to control and manipulate matter at the smallest scales and coldest temperatures.
This has opened entire new areas of technological advancement, supported the technology revolution of the 20th century, and revealed the potential for transformational new technologies and industries.
The capabilities stemming from quantum contribute to our everyday lives in more ways than many of us might realize. The bulk control of atoms, electrons, and photons has enabled MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), semiconductors, the internet, and the atomic clocks that are the basis of GPS (the Global Positioning System).
NIST’s work in quantum stretches back decades. We developed the first atomic clocks over 70 years ago. Our research stretching from the 1980s to the early 2000s led to four Nobel Prizes in quantum.
NIST’s work in quantum has revolutionized the development of atomic clocks and our development of optical atomic clocks will help redefine the second and increase the precision of clocks a hundredfold, increasing the capabilities of several technologies. These efforts, combined with our capabilities in nanomanufacturing, have also enabled broader deployment of quantum devices that are opening up new capabilities in precision navigation, as well as resource exploration.
Another area in which we are driving innovation in quantum is in the field of photonics. This work also builds on past semiconductor research and will benefit from our ongoing investments in advanced packaging that I mentioned earlier.
With photonics we are precisely controlling photons — packets of light — much like we control electrons on chips. Work done at NIST’s campus in Boulder, Colorado, has spun out multiple companies including one that is creating chip-scale frequency combs. Not only do they enable unparalleled measurements of the frequency of light for advanced clocks, but they are also being used to detect methane gas and the presence of markers for COVID.
NIST’s efforts have seeded a world-leading quantum ecosystem in the Boulder, Colorado, area. Today there a several quantum companies — many founded by former NIST staff — that are posed to develop the next Silicon Valley. The Economic Development Agency, also part of the Department of Commerce, awarded $41 million for a Tech Hub that will help build out this ecosystem. The tech hub will include a 70-acre site referred to as the “Quantum Commons,” where quantum companies can not only lease land to set up operations, but also access equipment they could not afford to buy on their own. This equipment will facilitate a faster transition from research and development to commercialization.
On a national level, NIST has established the Quantum Economic Development Consortium or QED-C. Today the QED-C has over 250 members and brings together companies from across the quantum ecosystem to help us understand use cases, identify critical and enabling technologies, and tackle important pre-competitive challenges need to move the field forward.
While I am tremendously proud of the work that NIST is doing to advance innovation and industrial competitiveness in every sector of our economy, from agriculture to AI, we are at an inflection point.
Across the U.S. science and innovation ecosystem, investment in research, facilities, and workforce development has not kept pace with national needs and threatens U.S. leadership over our strongest global competitors.
There is so much work to do. If we are to help the U.S. economy continue to grow and thrive in so many areas, we need your help and voice to ensure the continued innovation for a resilient feature.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.