(Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department has finalized a grant of more than $6.1 billion for memory chip maker Micron Technology (MU) to support the construction of several domestic semiconductor facilities, a White House statement said on Tuesday.
The investment, unchanged from the amount originally announced in April, marks one of the largest government grants to chip companies under the US CHIPS and Science Act.
It will finance factory projects in New York and Idaho and is expected to create at least 20,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
The Commerce Department and Micron also agreed to tentative terms for an additional $275 million investment to expand the chipmaker’s factory in Manassas, Virginia, which primarily produces chips sold in the automotive, networking and industrial markets.
The additional investments will “help onshore a critical technology that our defense industry, automotive sector and national security community rely on,” the White House said.
President Joe Biden’s administration has doubled domestic semiconductor production in an effort to reduce dependence on China and Taiwan. The US has completed a series of grants, including $7.86 billion to Intel and $6.6 billion to the US unit of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The final awards come just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who has criticized the program, takes office.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
