NSF Awards Support to Purdue’s Chipshub

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is recognizing Purdue University’s leadership in semiconductor technology with an award of $7 million over five years to Purdue’s Chipshub to serve as NSF’s Chip Design Hub. It will be involved with the development of novel semiconductor chips and in support of semiconductor education. Chipshub is a two-year-old online chip development platform powered by the online software center nanoHUB.

Gerhard Klimeck, nanoHUB co-director, Chip Design Hub principal investigator, Elmore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Riley Director of the Center for Predictive Devices and Materials and the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, noted, “This award is momentous for Purdue and for our nation. Our country faces a shortage of approximately 67,000 semiconductor engineers, technicians, and computer scientists by 2030,” citing a Semiconductor Industry Association/Oxford Economics report. 

Alejandro Strachan, nanoHUB and Chipshub co-director and Riley Professor of Materials Engineering at Purdue University, said, “Even doubling or tripling the number of students taught in semiconductors at these universities will not close the gap in the required workforce. Clearly, chip design must be taught and used in research in a much larger number of universities.” 

Purdue is a leading university in the education of students about semiconductor technology and through this award, the NSF is helping to fuel an increase in semiconductor engineering talent in the U.S. For more than 21 years (2002 to 2023), the NSF has invested almost $64 million in nanoHUB while Purdue has also supported nanoHUB with nearly $20 million over that time.

Strachan concluded, “Their ongoing support has enabled the continued operation of nanoHUB, expansion of services, and the initial development of Chipshub.”