ASU Research Park in Tempe chosen for national semiconductor test facility

PHOENIX — The Arizona State University Research Park in Tempe is set to house a new facility that will play a critical role in strengthening the nation’s domestic semiconductor supply chain.

The new semiconductor manufacturing hub near Warner and Price roads is expected to be fully operational in three years, according to ASU President Michael Crow.

“This is an unbelievable moment in history,” Crow told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Tuesday. “We’ve accelerated to this point where these have become as essential as cleaning water, as essential as producing food, to our future.”

What’s important about new semiconductor manufacturing hub in Tempe?

Manufacturing semiconductor chips is unbelievably complicated, he added.

“We’re designing little highways in which electronics turn the corner and we have to reduce the heat from a single set of electrons going past the corner on a small object not bigger than your thumb,” Crow said.

These 300mm semiconductor wafers that will be manufactured are large, circular pieces of silicon. They’re crucial for powering modern electronics such as smartphones, TVs, drones, kitchen appliances, vehicles and countless other devices used daily by Americans.

This Tempe facility is notable because it is the third and final CHIPS for America research and development flagship facility.

“These technologies have now become essential to everything,” Crow said. “There’s hundreds of chips in every car. You’ve got computer brains throughout your house.”

They’re also used in medical care, teaching and learning, he added.

What’s unique about this Tempe facility is that it specifically focuses on the early stages of the process of manufacturing semiconductor chips.

What will Tempe semiconductor manufacturing facility do?

Much of the work taking place at the Tempe semiconductor manufacturing facility relates to packaging, according to Sally Morton, the executive vice president of ASU Knowledge Enterprise.

“There’s a lot involved in … putting things together,” Morton told KTAR News. “That’s what’s called ‘packaging’ in the chips industry. So this facility will specifically be for research and development.”

Researchers will focus on the initial stages of semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Much of these experiments will take place at the Tempe facility’s baseline advanced packaging piloting line.

Researchers will use this small-scale production line to experiment with new ways of packaging chips before these techniques are scaled up for mass production.

Specifically, they’ll focus on front-end manufacturing, which includes the design, development, and testing of the chips’ fundamental components.

How will this help Arizona’s semiconductor supply chain?

It all comes down to prototyping, Morton said.

“What that means is before something goes into production, we have an idea,” she said. “We might work on it in a research lab, and then we take the next step, ‘Let’s make a small version of it, see if it works, test it.’ That’s what prototyping means.”

The prototyping taking place at this Tempe facility will involve other semiconducting operations in Arizona.

“The idea might be shipped out to a fabrication facility like the ones run by TSMC and Intel here in the Phoenix Valley,” Morton said.

Tempe officials expect it to be operational as early as the fall of 2028.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Heidi Hommel contributed to this report.