Indiana University’s leadership and major investments in microelectronics research and workforce development continue to contribute to significant regional momentum around the semiconductor industry.
Last week, Bloomington-based Regional Opportunity Initiatives announced it has received a three-year, nearly $9.6 million contract from the Department of Defense for a multilayered initiative to advance microelectronics education and workforce training opportunities across the Indiana Uplands. The southern Indiana region includes the counties of Brown, Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Orange, Owen and Washington counties, and it is home to Naval Support Activity Crane, the third-largest naval Installation in the world and the 11th-largest single-site employer in Indiana.

As part of the Rural Indiana Workforce Development for Microelectronics project, ROI will collaborate with postsecondary colleges and universities, including IU, as well as with K-12 schools, employer partners and other institutions to promote microelectronics-related careers, accelerate students and workers into and through training and development pipelines, and inspire the next generation of industrial skilled professionals.
The award to ROI comes as IU continues to move forward a series of major initiatives to advance the goals of the landmark CHIPS and Science Act, which marked its second anniversary last month. These projects are part of IU’s historic commitment to invest at least $111 million over the next several years to advance IU’s and Indiana’s national leadership and impact in microelectronics and nanotechnology. Announced last October by IU President Pamela Whitten, it is one of the largest commitments made by a university to high-tech industry and national defense and is supporting collaborations with defense contractors and companies working to develop dual-use technologies.
The EDGE Consortium, a national semiconductor workforce development initiative co-chaired by Whitten, will work closely with ROI to share educational modules, supply evidence-based approaches to inspire students of all ages to persist in STEM fields and develop high-quality work experiences for students in the semiconductor industry.
National projections show a potential shortfall of 300,000 engineers and 90,000 skilled workers in the U.S. semiconductor industry by 2030. To address this, IU plans to increase its graduate students in microelectronics by 300% over the next two years after having already doubled this enrollment in the last 10 months. IU has also started several new undergraduate and graduate degree programs at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering to train students in microelectronics and nanofabrication and meet the workforce needs of the state’s semiconductor companies.
As part of its $111 million investment, IU has launched the Center for Reliable and Trusted Electronics focused on research and development of high-reliability microelectronics with applications to the defense, automotive and commercial space sectors. Known as IU CREATE, the university-wide center is supported by the Department of Defense’s Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement program, the preeminent U.S. program for semiconductor workforce development, as well as the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, which is located about 40 minutes southwest of IU’s Bloomington campus.
Since its formation, IU CREATE has engaged in microelectronics projects through the Indiana Research Consortium, a first-of-its-kind defense research effort recently established by IU, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame; Indiana’s Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement (SCALE) workforce development program; and the Silicon Crossroads Microelectronics Commons, which was awarded nearly $33 million in CHIPS Act funding last fall. The Indiana Uplands is home to the ME Commons, one of eight regional innovation hubs funded by the Department of Defense to help increase the production of semiconductor technologies and microelectronics.
IU CREATE has also initiated several workforce development programs, including a NASA-funded initiative to help K-12 students understand how semiconductors and climate issues are related to space; a Research in Extreme Environment Microelectronics internship that engages students in cutting-edge projects in microelectronics design, space systems, radiation effects and electronics; and a project to expand the community of individuals interested in examining barriers to entry in the microelectronics radiation effects field.
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