Washington DC: The US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the American tech giant Google have inked a cooperative research and development deal in order to develop chips for researchers.
Under the agreement, they will manufacture chips that researchers can use to create new nanotechnology and semiconductor devices. The chips will be produced by the US-based semiconductor engineering and fabrication foundry, SkyWater Technology.
The Alphabet-owned company said in a statement that “it will pay for the initial cost of setting up production and subsidize the first production run.”
The announcement comes shortly after the US approved the CHIPS and Science Act that intends to bolster semiconductor research and manufacturing in the country.
By creating a new and affordable domestic supply of chips for research and development, this collaboration aims to unleash the innovative potential of researchers and startups across the nation. This is a great example of how government, industry, and academic researchers can work together to enhance US leadership in this critically important industry.
Ms. Laurie E. Locascio, Director of NIST and the fourth Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology remarked
The chip’s circuitry will be designed by NIST in partnership with university research partners. As per the NIST, “The circuit designs will be open source, allowing academic and small business researchers to use the chips without restriction or licensing fees.”
The research partners contributing to the chip designs include the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Brown University, and Carnegie Mellon University, the Commerce Department added.
“Google has a long history of leadership in open-source. Moving to an open-source framework fosters reproducibility, which helps researchers from public and private institutions iterate on each other’s work. It also democratizes innovation in nanotechnology and semiconductor research,” commented Mr. Will Grannis, CEO of Google Public Sector.