US Confirms $400 Million Subsidy for Taiwan GlobalWafers Semiconductor

On the 17th (local time), the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it has made a final decision to provide a subsidy of $406 million (approximately 580 billion KRW) to GlobalWafers, a Taiwanese silicon wafer manufacturer, under the CHIPS Act.

The subsidy will support GlobalWafers' construction of wafer manufacturing plants in Texas and Missouri, with an investment of about $4 billion. Both parties signed a Preliminary Memorandum of Transaction (PMT) in July and have been negotiating to finalize the subsidy.

The Biden administration is rushing negotiations to finalize the subsidy amount, as then-President-elect Donald Trump had expressed a negative stance toward subsidies under the CHIPS Act.

Previously, the Biden administration finalized subsidies of $7.865 billion (approximately 11 trillion KRW) for Intel on the 26th of last month, and $6.165 billion (approximately 8.8 trillion KRW) for Micron on the 10th of this month. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are also negotiating after signing Preliminary Memoranda of Transaction for subsidies of $6.4 billion (approximately 9.2 trillion KRW) and $450 million (approximately 640 billion KRW), respectively.