Plans for the construction of an advanced packaging facility at Arizona State University’s Research Park are now on hold after the loss of significant funding.
Earlier this year it was announced that the university would construct the facility within the school’s existing Macro Technology Works structure, and that upon completion it would house both semiconductor research as well as packaging technology.
When the planned facility was selected by the Commerce Department as part of the CHIPS for America initiative, ASU President Michael Crow said the project would create “a national lab that will be the final piece in a semiconductor supply chain that serves the nation with research and development, manufacturing and workforce development – all right here in Arizona.”
Sally Morton, executive vice president of the school’s Knowledge Enterprise, was similarly enthusiastic, remarking in a statement that the new facility would “play a critical role for the country.” She added that the university was particularly “well-equipped to contribute to and enhance the long-term success of this important national asset.”
But now, funding to the tune of $7.4 billion has been yanked by the same Commerce Department after Secretary Howard Lutnick called into question a legal aspect of the project.
Lutnick asserted that the non-profit Natcast, a public-private consortium created in 2023 and dedicated to semiconductor research in the country, had been illegally created by the Biden Administration.
He additionally called the consortium an “effort to skirt clear legal restrictions prohibiting government agencies from establishing corporations.”
“From the very beginning Natcast served as a semiconductor slush fund that did nothing but line the pockets of Biden loyalists with American tax dollars,” Lutnick continued.
In a letter to Deirdre Hanford, chief executive officer of Natcast, Lutnick said the Commerce Department under Biden “had no specific legal authorization to establish Natcast as it did.”
What happens next at ASU is not currently known. Jay Thorney, a spokesperson for the school, has been quoted in the Phoenix Business Journal as saying that the university is in the process of “determining the potential impact for projects involving the university.”
September 2, 2025
By Garry Boulard
