At a fundamental level, it’s all about speed. The companies that make these chips are starting to dabble in exotic terrain, like quantum computing, which is phenomenally faster (if we can get it to work) than current chips. I do know that they are getting ridiculously small. What are the cutting-edge chips capable of that the legacy chips are not? is an advanced tech country we’re going to use all of it. The cybersecurity industry-which is part of everybody else’s industry-relies on advanced technology. Energy uses a lot of it: the distributed generation technology, which is becoming more and more important, relies on some really sophisticated computer modeling. The agricultural sector: people always overlook American ag, but they’re doing some incredibly high-tech stuff in terms of sensing, remote sensing, autonomous vehicles harvesters and farm equipment, that’s going to rely on some of this stuff as well. But as you get into more autonomous vehicles, that power has to be greater, because they have to make more decisions faster. The automobile industry relies on an increasing number of computer chips, but they tend not to be the really cutting-edge chips. Finance actually needs a lot of high-end chip computing power. So looking just at the really high-end chips: artificial intelligence, obviously, is going to be “the faster, the better” for that industry. The CHIPS bill is mostly focused on the really high-end cutting-edge chips, although there’s some language in there for the legacy chips. Within the chip industry, you differentiate between legacy chips, which are the reliable chips that have been around for a while, and then cutting-edge chips. Which industries rely on semiconductor chips?Īll of them. But it does Artemis, the moon and beyond missions it does some bureaucratic shuffling to create the structures needed for NASA to survive and thrive in this new space environment that we’re in. So in the NASA section, there’s no actual dollar numbers in there. You look at all the rest of the bill-all the energy stuff and the NSF research-all of that is “authorized” money, which means it’s not real yet: we gotta get it through the appropriations process. What about the support for science programs, including NASA? The research stuff $11 billion in general research and development within the Commerce Department for anything in this space.
One of the themes that runs throughout the bill is support of domestic manufacturing, which is important because manufacturing produces a huge percentage of jobs in this country-it always has. Of the $52.7 billion in subsidies, the bulk of that will end up going to private companies. Most of the money is going into industry and supporting industry investments. We need to highlight that because the CHIPS Act of the bill is “appropriated funds.” That is, it’s real dollars and therefore that money is going to be spent. It truly does support the semiconductor industry and the associated businesses: it’s not just the production of semiconductors, it’s also all the things you need to produce semiconductors-design, packaging, a holistic look at the industry. There’s the CHIPS Act: it’s fairly focused and fantastically good for semiconductors and related industries, which IEEE is obviously quite excited about. First of all, it’s important to note that the bill basically has two sections. What types of science, technology and exploration does this act support?Īll of them! That’s not quite true, but there’s a lot in there. Scientific American spoke with Harrison about what the CHIPS and Science Act covers, and how this will impact the U.S. “Actually, I’m trying to think of industries that wouldn’t be dependent on them,” he adds. branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA), who has been consulting with politicians on the legislation for the past few years. It also sets new policies for NASA, including extending support for the International Space Station through 2030 and reorganizing a program for sending humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars.īecause so many fields rely on computer chips, the new law’s effects will go well beyond the semiconductor industry, says Russell Harrison, acting managing director of the U.S. “CHIPS” stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors,” but the act goes beyond computer components: it proposes big funding increases for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The legislation includes nearly $53 billion in funding to encourage domestic manufacture of semiconductor chips, as well as continued research into this field. This week, President Joe Biden will sign the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law.
0 kommentar(er)
