Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who worked on the CHIPS Act as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said several other Minnesota companies have applied for funding. As President Joe Biden’s term in the White House comes to an end, she said she doesn’t know which companies, if any, will be eligible for direct aid next.
“This is another big win for Minnesota,” Klobuchar said. “But we also know that we can expand. And we shouldn’t just think about California technology and New York technology. We should also think about Minnesota.”
She added that Biden was holding a Skywater chip in his hand when he announced the bill.
Sondermann said the funding complements more than $320 million in facility and equipment upgrades planned through 2026. The company expanded its facilities in 2020 with the help of a $170 million grant from the Department of Defense to boost production of military chips.
Control Data, one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of midrange and mainframe computers, has been a dominant technology company in Minnesota for decades, building the SkyWater factory in the 1980s. He then sold the facility to Cypress Semiconductor, which sold it to a private investor. They founded Skywater in 2017.
