Ohio State University is expanding semiconductor research and development infrastructure and bolstering its "lab-to-fab" capabilities thanks to a $20 million investment.
The Microelectronics Innovation and Technology Cluster, operated by Ohio State's Institute for Materials and Manufacturing Research, specializes in semiconductor processing, device prototyping and testing. The lab hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Oct. 20 to officially unveil new machinery purchased with the funding.
The lab – through its partnership with the Midwest Microelectronics Consortium, a Department of War-designated regional innovation hub – plays a key role in strengthening the U.S. microelectronics supply chain. The MMEC, located in Dayton, launched in 2023 backed by
$2 billion in federal CHIPS Science Act funding.
In nearby New Albany, construction on Intel's Ohio facilities recently reached a milestone as the company touted its commitment to production in the United States. The first structural truss for the $30 billion project was recently raised on the Licking County project.
MITEC is comprised of four different labs under one roof, moving semiconductor research from science to prototype, said Steven Ringel, MITEC lead principal investigator and senior associate vice president for research at Ohio State.
The labs go beyond what most people think of as traditional silicon chip production and focus on studying and prototyping chips using nitride-based and gallium oxide-based materials, Ringel said. Those materials are used for applications that require higher voltages, temperatures and switching speeds than silicon, like high-power electronics, radars and electric vehicles.
Studying these materials requires sophisticated machinery that isn't widely available – until now.
The investment – about $16 million from MMEC and roughly $4.5 million combined from Ohio State and the Ohio Department of Higher Education – made it possible to fund major equipment additions and facility upgrades. Ringel said the machinery that now sits in the labs are some of the only systems of their kind in the country, and the only openly accessible machine of its kind in the U.S.
"This kind of thing doesn't look like your grandfather's university lab," Ringel said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony inside the lab, motioning around the lab's heavy white machinery and rafters covered in silver tubes. "... I expect it to have heavy, heavy use."
John Horack, vice president for research at Ohio State, said the work being done at MITEC helps bridge the gap between traditional university research work and full-scale commercial production, or "lab-to-fab" for short. Spaces like these, he said, are a middle ground between two worlds that can sometimes seem very far apart.
Horack likened it to Charles Goodyear discovering vulcanized rubber in the lab. It was a revolutionary discovery, but still a long way from a car tire.
"It's one thing to demonstrate something in a lab," he said. "It's another thing to do it at scale."
Earlier that day, university officials broke ground Oct. 20 on the Timashev Technology Tower, a planned 103,000-square-foot, eight-story building that will one day house community-led and university-born startups, as well as industry partners. The building, expected to open in September 2028, will be Ohio State's latest expansion on the west campus Innovation District.
IMR has been a "cornerstone" of Ohio State's Innovation District for 20 years, Ringel said. He see the university's continued investment and growth on west campus as "a rising tide" for everyone.
"This investment enables the next generation of technology," Ringel said.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State lab gets $20 million investment to bolster semiconductor production
