Coherent secures $15M in funding from the CHIPS and Science Act

Coherent announced that it secured $15M in funding from the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, or CHIPS, and Science Act of 2022 that provided the Department of Defense, or DoD, with $2B to strengthen and revitalize the U.S. semiconductor supply chain. One of the key objectives of the CHIPS program is to nurture ecosystems that reduce risk, incentivizing large-scale private investment in production, breakthrough technologies, and workers. To that end, the DoD, through the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division and the National Security Technology Accelerator, established eight Microelectronics Commons regional innovation hubs in September, including the Commercial Leap Ahead for Wide-Bandgap Semiconductors Hub based in North Carolina and led by NC State University. As a member of the CLAWS Hub, Coherent will receive $15M to accelerate the commercialization of next-generation wide- and ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors, namely, silicon carbide and single-crystal diamond, respectively. Single-crystal diamond promises to exceed the performance of silicon carbide and greatly expand the applications universe with quantum computing, quantum encryption, and quantum sensing.