WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Leaders from industry, government and academia convened at a summit Tuesday (April 18) in Washington, D.C. to forge national solutions at scale to address the future of U.S. innovation in microelectronics and the semiconductor workforce.

The  full-day CHIPS for America: Execute for Success Summit in Washington, D.C., led by Purdue and U.S. Sen. Todd Young of Indiana at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., convened hundreds of attendees representing over 175 entities from over 23 states, and focused on strategies to execute the vision outlined in the recently released CHIPS for America: Vision for Success. It highlighted the implementation of federal investments and future policy actions, and facilitated the creation of government, industry and academic partnerships with a special focus on workforce development and research innovation.

President Mung Chiang and chief semiconductor officer Mark Lundstrom represented Purdue, which partnered with SEMI, the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, to host the summit.

Keynoting the day, Chiang led a fireside chat with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Sen. Young, and several panel discussions featured leaders from industry, government and academia sharing their perspectives on how to best execute the vision for CHIPS Act workforce development and R&D programs.

“This is our silicon moment, to execute the CHIPS Act for success,” Chiang said. “As we celebrate the 75 years since the invention of transistor in Bell Labs, we can only imagine what the next 75 years of semiconductors innovation might look like.”

Raimondo, who visited Purdue in fall 2022 along with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said at the summit: “I was blown away by what I saw when I visited Purdue, in so far as, in my assessment, it is exactly what the United States needs to be doing. Real robust partnering as between top research universities, like Purdue, and industry, but also the integration of community colleges and also high schools.”

She added: “More people need to continue to do what Purdue is doing: allowing students class credit for applied work at companies, allowing companies to come into the universities, making sure that the students are job ready when they graduate.

Reflecting on last September’s visit to Purdue by Raimondo and Blinken, Young said, “There’s a lot of excitement in the air about what might follow. … What I’ve been encouraged about on the back end of that gathering is that our state has really operationalized many of the opportunities. We’re putting together a tech-hub package. Purdue University and some other institutions are developing new workforce training programs for these key sectors. Indiana is really poised to play a (significant) role as it relates to semiconductors but also any of the other emerging technologies that we need to invest in.”

Other speakers at the summit included Ramin Toloui, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State; Dr. Dev Shenoy, principal director of microelectronics with the U.S. Department of Defense; Dr. Eric Lin, interim director, CHIPS Research and Development, U.S. Department of Commerce; and Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, assistant director of the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships at the National Science Foundation, as well as leaders from Applied Materials, Everspin Technologies, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Intel, Micron, SEMI, the Semiconductor Industry Association, Semiconductor Research Corporation, and SkyWater. They shared their perspectives on the challenges ahead, ways to measure progress and how to sustain the effort over the long term. Barbara Snyder, President of the Association of American Universities, made concluding remarks about the multiple roles a leading research university like Purdue plays in the success of CHIPS Act.