The White House, through the Small Business Innovation Research program, has selected 17 small businesses from nine states that will receive almost $5 million in total funding for research projects meant to further develop the semiconductor industry.
The Department of Commerce said Thursday the grants, the first award for the CHIPS Research and Development Office, are intended for researching concepts and developing products or services that will benefit the commercial microelectronics marketplace.
The grants also align with the administration’s efforts to provide small businesses the opportunity to succeed in their respective industries.
The CHIPS Metrology SBIR awardees are as follows:
- Direct Electron
- Exigent Solutions
- HighRI Optics
- Hummingbird Precision Machine Co. dba Hummingbird Scientific
- Laser Thermal Analysis
- Octave Photonics
- Photon Spot
- Photothermal Spectroscopy Corp.
- PrimeNano
- Recon RF
- Sigray
- Steam Instruments
- Tech-X Corp.
- The Provenance Chain Network
- Tiptek
- Vapor Cell Technologies
- Virtual EM
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, said, “As we grow the U.S. semiconductor industry, the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to building opportunities for small businesses to prosper. With today’s awards, these 17 businesses will support CHIPS for America’s efforts to grow the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem and support our national and economic security.”
The SBIR Phase I awardees were chosen from proposals sent through a notice of funding opportunity. They will be considered for the SBIR Phase II award, which will be held in Spring 2025.