The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) CHIPS Office has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for new research and development (R&D) activities through the CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program (NAPMP). The NOFO will invest up to $1.6 billion in five R&D areas related to packaging, with individual awards up to $150 million. Along with R&D topics, the NOFO includes support for prototype development in application areas such as “high -performance computing and low-power systems needed for AI.” This announcement comes following a Notice of Intent (NOI) released in July that Lewis-Burke previously reported on, which previewed the content of the full NOFO.

The NOFO calls for proposals in five R&D areas: equipment, tools, processes, and process integration; power delivery and thermal management; connector technology, including photonics and radio frequency (RF); chiplets ecosystem; and co-design/electronic design automation (EDA). The R&D areas included in this NOFO are consistent with and outlined in the November 2023 NAPMP Vision Paper, and as background, the goal of the NAPMP R&D program is to establish a “vibrant, self - sustaining, profitable, domestic packaging industry” in the U.S. within 10 -years. This is the second NAPMP R&D NOFO; Lewis-Burke previously reported on the first NOFO, which was released in February 2024 and supported research on advanced packaging materials and substrates.

Domestic institutions of higher education, along with non - and for- profit organizations are eligible to apply. CHIPS R&D strongly encourages “multi-disciplinary multi-organization” teams that include the full breadth of expertise and experience to achieve the technical objectives of each R&D area. Concept Papers are due by 11:59 PM ET on December 20, 2024, 60 days after the initial publication of notice. Full applications will be accepted by invitation only and will be due 60 days from the date of invitation. CHIPS R&D will post a series of recorded webinars with more detail on the R&D Areas on chips.gov. More information can be found here.