$50m Chips Act funding for Coherent InP fab expansion
US photonics company Coherent has signed a letter of intent to receive up to $50 million in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act from the US Department of Commerce to expand its 6-inch InP semiconductor manufacturing facility in Sherman, Texas.
The announcement coincided with a breaking ground ceremony with Nvidia at Coherent’s Sherman facility along with federal and state officials, and local community leaders. The fundiing builds upon $20m previously provided through the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund and the Sherman Economic Development Corporation.
The investment will support growing demand for optical networking technologies that power AI data centres and strengthen Coherent’s longstanding and recently expanded partnership with NVIDIA.
The expansion project adds advanced wafer fabrication equipment and cleanroom capacity to double manufacturing production space and quadruple InP wafer production capacity. At project completion, the Sherman site is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs, including more than 550 direct advanced manufacturing, engineering, and technical roles.
“InP photonics are essential for enabling high-speed data transmission within AI systems, telecommunications, and advanced networks,” said Bill Frauenhofer, executive director for semiconductor Iivestment and innovation at the US Department of Commerce. “The CHIPS incentives will expand production capability, strengthen the US semiconductor supply chain, and accelerate the next generation of critical optical technologies.”
