The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Google have signed an agreement to cooperate on semiconductor development for license-free, domestically produced chips to support technology and product R&D.
The chips will be manufactured in Bloomington, Minnesota, by SkyWater Technology, which has a chip foundry there. NIST, working with university researchers, will design open-source circuitry for the chips that will allow academics and small business researchers to use them “without restriction or licensing fees,” according to NIST. Google will foot the bill for the up-front production costs and subsidize the first production run of the chips.
