Purdue Silicon Summit further accelerates momentum with announcements and brings national, global semiconductor leaders to campus

Semiconductor industry leaders will converge on the West Lafayette campus for partnership meetings, lectures and conferences as well as major announcements on Chips@Purdue semiconductor research, education and industry collaboration.

The Purdue Silicon Summit also comes on the heels of the first CHIPS Act decision in the Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons announcement, where the Indiana-led proposal “Silicon Crossroads,” with Purdue as the lead university in Indiana, was one of eight hubs selected out of over 80 proposals across the country. At $33 million for its first-year budget in this five-year program, it is the largest hub in the Midwest.

“With eight events and announcements within the span of same number of days at the Purdue Silicon Summit, with dozens of companies in the country, several partner countries, and almost all the major university partners in the Midwest, Purdue again demonstrates its leadership in semiconductor workforce, innovation and policy that is second to none in the U.S.,” said Purdue President Mung Chiang. “From design to devices, from packaging to cooling, from system applications to software tools, Chips@Purdue is creating innovations from labs to fabs and bringing jobs and talents to Indiana.”

• Key events begin today with Patrick Gelsinger, Intel CEO, speaking as part of the Purdue Presidential Lecture Series at 7 p.m. in Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse. The event is free, but a general admission ticket is required.
• Rahm Emanuel, U.S. ambassador to Japan, also will virtually speak today as part of the Ambassador Distinguished Lecture Series, featuring a conversation with Chiang where the pair will discuss the kickoff of the U.S.-Japan semiconductor alliance signed at G7 in Hiroshima, Japan, in May. The event’s livestream link is available through the Japan-America Society of Indiana.
• Representatives from five other U.S. universities, five Japan universities, Micron, Tokyo Electron, and the National Science Foundation will be among the participants in the inaugural meeting on Wednesday (Oct. 18) of the $60 million U.S.-Japan University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research and Development in Semiconductors for the Future (UPWARDS).
• Purdue will announce the creation of the new Institute of Advanced System Integration and Packaging (ASIP) at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Materials and Electrical Engineering Building, expanding the university’s work to accelerate the future of microelectronic system integration and advanced chip packaging.
• On Thursday (Oct. 19), the Purdue Global Semiconductor Partners Conference will bring leaders to campus from like-minded U.S. allies the university signed collaboration agreements with. In particular, plans to launch the first project in the partnership announced in June between the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, Purdue University, and imec, a Belgium-based semiconductor innovation hub in Europe, will be finalized.
• Also scheduled to speak during the conference is Nathaniel Fick, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy. As part of the Ambassador Distinguished Lecture Series and Krach Freedom Lecture, Fisk will speak at 10:30 a.m. Thursday with moderator Keith Krach, former U.S. undersecretary of state in the Purdue Memorial Union North Ballroom. The lecture is open to faculty, staff and students. Tickets are free and available here.
• The summit will wrap up the following week with a list of around 30 leading semiconductor company executives who make up the Semiconductor Degree Leadership Board convening the board’s annual meeting at Purdue. On Oct. 24, before convening, the board will take a morning trip to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, where Purdue@Crane was launched in September 2023 to advance national security research collaboration.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top 4 in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, with 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 12 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap, including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes, at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.