Purdue inks another international semiconductor agreement

Purdue University President Mung Chiang on Sunday signed an international agreement with manufacturers and other higher education institutions in the U.S. and Japan to create the Upwards Network, designed to advance research and development and the workforce in the semiconductor industry.

The signing took place Sunday at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima.

In addition to Purdue, the institutions represented in the agreement include Idaho-based semiconductor maker Micron, Tokyo Electron, and the University of Chicago.

Purdue said Micron and Tokyo Electron are serving as founding industry partners and are joining the National Science Foundation and the participating universities to invest a total of more than $60 million for the five-year project.

“Purdue is the leading American university in semiconductor talent, innovation and industry partnership,” Chiang remarked during the signing ceremony. “We are excited to partner with the semiconductor companies and other institutions for semiconductor collaboration between the U.S. and Japan. We will also launch the Negishi Fellowship in addition to the Upwards Network program to strengthen such collaboration.”

The other U.S. university partners involved in the agreement are Boise State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Washington and Virginia Tech, while the Japanese university participants are Hiroshima University, Kyushu University, Nagoya University, Tohoku University and Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The agreement is the third global partnership involving Purdue announced this month.

On May 2, Purdue and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Belgium-based research and innovation center Imec designed to advance R&D in Indiana’s semiconductor industry.

A week later, the university inked an agreement with the India Semiconductor Mission focusing on skilled workforce development and joint research and innovation in the field of semiconductors and microelectronics.

Purdue said it is the only U.S.-based university with bilateral partnerships in semiconductors with Europe, India and Japan.