Semiwiki on LinkedIn Semiwiki on Facebook Semiwiki on Twitter Register / Log in 
Array
(
    [content] => 
    [params] => Array
        (
            [0] => /forum/threads/natcast-to-lay-off-majority-of-its-staff.23596/
        )

    [addOns] => Array
        (
            [DL6/MLTP] => 13
            [Hampel/TimeZoneDebug] => 1000070
            [SV/ChangePostDate] => 2010200
            [SemiWiki/Newsletter] => 1000010
            [SemiWiki/WPMenu] => 1000010
            [SemiWiki/XPressExtend] => 1000010
            [ThemeHouse/XLink] => 1000970
            [ThemeHouse/XPress] => 1010570
            [XF] => 2021770
            [XFI] => 1050270
        )

    [wordpress] => /var/www/html
)

Natcast to Lay Off Majority of Its Staff

O

osnium

Well-known member
Natcast could have been the US equivalent of imec if it was permitted to run.

From the article:

Natcast, the non-profit organization created to run the U.S. CHIPS & Science Act’s National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) told the majority of its staff they would be laid off this week, IEEE Spectrum has learned. A small core team will continue on to shut Natcast down over the next few weeks, a person familiar with the matter said.

The organization was founded in 2023 to run NSTC, which the law established to conduct “research and prototyping of advanced semiconductor technology and grow the domestic semiconductor workforce to strengthen the economic competitiveness and security of the domestic supply chain.”

However, on 25 August Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that the department would not deliver the US $7.4 billion in funds under its contract with the government. In an accusatory letter to Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford and a press release, Lutnick claimed the nonprofit was not created legally, and said that the National Institute of Standards and Technology would be taking over NSTC operations.

spectrum.ieee.org

Natcast to Lay Off Majority of Its Staff

Non-profit operator of CHIPS Act R&D hit by government withdrawal
spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org
 
osnium said:
Natcast could have been the US equivalent of imec if it was permitted to run.

spectrum.ieee.org

Natcast to Lay Off Majority of Its Staff

Non-profit operator of CHIPS Act R&D hit by government withdrawal
spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org

From the article:

Natcast, the non-profit organization created to run the U.S. CHIPS & Science Act’s National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) told the majority of its staff they would be laid off this week, IEEE Spectrum has learned. A small core team will continue on to shut Natcast down over the next few weeks, a person familiar with the matter said.

The organization was founded in 2023 to run NSTC, which the law established to conduct “research and prototyping of advanced semiconductor technology and grow the domestic semiconductor workforce to strengthen the economic competitiveness and security of the domestic supply chain.”

However, on 25 August Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that the department would not deliver the US $7.4 billion in funds under its contract with the government. In an accusatory letter to Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford and a press release, Lutnick claimed the nonprofit was not created legally, and said that the National Institute of Standards and Technology would be taking over NSTC operations.
Click to expand...

It's a sad ending.
 
The closest thing would be the joint IBM-Globalfoundries-Samsung operation running at Albany I think. IBM is still there I think, dunno about the others.
 
Why do we need Natcast and NIST? Natcast is non-profit but how big is their payroll? Just what were the 100+ employees actually doing? I know Deirdre Hanford and you will never hear anything bad about her. She is a very ethical person but I still have questions. She was at Synopsys at its inception (37 years) so I doubt she needs the money. She started as an Applications Engineer and finished as Chief Security Officer doing government programs.

Anyone appointed by the previous administration has a target on their back. Politics. 😖 It will be interesting to see the NATCAST Form 990 to see what the executive staff was paid. Our tax dollars hard at work.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Why do we need Natcast and NIST? Natcast is non-profit but how big is their payroll? Just what were the 100+ employees actually doing? I know Deirdre Hanford and you will never hear anything bad about her. She is a very ethical person but I still have questions. She was at Synopsys at its inception (37 years) so I doubt she needs the money. She started as an Applications Engineer and finished as Chief Security Officer doing government programs.

Anyone appointed by the previous administration has a target on their back. Politics. 😖 It will be interesting to see the NATCAST Form 990 to see what the executive staff was paid. Our tax dollars hard at work.
Click to expand...
These kinds of government spearheaded initiatives will be effective in China, where the government has tremendous sway over the tech. companies, either through overt political pressure, or through incentives like the big fund. There are also a lot of SOEs there to begin with.

In a way, it is ironic that it is this admin. that killed Natcast, isn't more control of the private sector what they want.
 
bilau said:
These kinds of government spearheaded initiatives will be effective in China, where the government has tremendous sway over the tech. companies, either through overt political pressure, or through incentives like the big fund. There are also a lot of SOEs there to begin with.

In a way, it is ironic that it is this admin. that killed Natcast, isn't more control of the private sector what they want.
Click to expand...

The current administration is not a fan of the CHIPs Act so this is not a surprise. The NIST head, nominated by Joe Biden, stepped down at the end of last year and the new person Craig Burkhardt is a longtime GOP election-law attorney. Politics.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
The current administration is not a fan of the CHIPs Act so this is not a surprise. The NIST head, nominated by Joe Biden, stepped down at the end of last year and the new person Craig Burkhardt is a longtime GOP election-law attorney. Politics.
Click to expand...
politics certainly is a big factor here. But it is indeed going to be very interesting to see, if possible, what Natcast is spending their resource. No doubt there are significant waste, comes with the government spending
 
osnium said:
Natcast could have been the US equivalent of imec if it was permitted to run.
Click to expand...

Was that ever the plan? I thought Natcast was overseeing the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) which is supposed to do U.S. semiconductor R&D, prototyping, and workforce development.
  • "Formal award (Jan 16, 2025): NIST issued Natcast a long-term award of up to $6.3 B to operate the NSTC. (Separate from this, $1.1 B went to NAPMP’s packaging pilot facilities.) Governance change (Aug 25, 2025): Commerce voided the Natcast agreement and said NIST will assume NSTC operations; news coverage described the voided deal as $7.4B (the figure many outlets used because they bundled the $6.3 B NSTC award plus $1.1 B packaging funds). Future allocations will come directly via NIST."
Politics. :cautious:
  • I remember participating in some DARPA skunk work programs back in the day. That was fun.
The President’s FY2025 request for DARPA is $4.369 billion (FY2024 enacted: $4.122 billion). DARPA has about 220 government employees.
 
IF the US really wanted to do this, I think we'd be bettor off jump starting the effort by spinning out Intel Labs as our NSTC in a consortium of leading edge onshore foundries including Samsung, TSMC and Intel. Seems like Intel Labs already has what NSTC was going to take years to build. I'm sure Intel would at least be receptive to shaving $B off their R&D budget. More $ to spend on product development. I think IBM research could also bring their lessons learned from running their COMMON PLATFORM. Speed to opportunity.
 
Paul Colestock said:
IF the US really wanted to do this, I think we'd be bettor off jump starting the effort by spinning out Intel Labs as our NSTC in a consortium of leading edge onshore foundries including Samsung, TSMC and Intel. Seems like Intel Labs already has what NSTC was going to take years to build. I'm sure Intel would at least be receptive to shaving $B off their R&D budget. More $ to spend on product development. I think IBM research could also bring their lessons learned from running their COMMON PLATFORM. Speed to opportunity.
Click to expand...
I don't think Intel would like to participate with TSMC and Samsung in this regard.
 
Paul Colestock said:
IF the US really wanted to do this, I think we'd be bettor off jump starting the effort by spinning out Intel Labs as our NSTC in a consortium of leading edge onshore foundries including Samsung, TSMC and Intel. Seems like Intel Labs already has what NSTC was going to take years to build. I'm sure Intel would at least be receptive to shaving $B off their R&D budget. More $ to spend on product development. I think IBM research could also bring their lessons learned from running their COMMON PLATFORM. Speed to opportunity.
Click to expand...
But is a nation-wide, or even world-wide Common Platform really a good way to advance (any) tech? Should the government take over USB? or NVLink?

Even communist China, which rules by fiat, sometimes artificially creates competing SOEs (e.g. China Mobile, China Unicom...) to address exactly the same set of issues.

Government's role or resource should be applied to more fundamental research, i.e. from 0 to 1; but not from 1 to 100.

Moral hazards aside, has any government demonstrated aptitude in profit driven endeavors?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top