Korean Plant in Covington Poised to Get $75M From Federal Government

A Korean-owned plant producing glass substrates for advanced semiconductors in Georgia looks poised to get $75 million in grants under the CHIPS and Science Act.

Absolics, a new venture by SKC, Georgia’s first Korean investor, said in 2021 that would spend $473 million to put a 120,000-square-foot substrate plant in Covington, on the same campus where SKC has operated a plastic film factory since 1996. Both firms are part of the SK Group.

Months after the act passed in August 2022, the company held a groundbreaking at which officials said Absolics would up its investment by more than $120 million to $600 million and add 410 jobs across two phases.

Officials told Global Atlanta at the time that they felt they had a good shot at getting some of the $50 billion allocated by Congress to incentivize the return of the semiconductor supply chain to the United States.

This week’s announcement, while not representative of new investment in Georgia, shows that their assessment was well-founded. The funding, which is subject to due diligence from the U.S. Commerce Department, would help the company justify its large capital outlay in the state.

“Our new facility in Covington will not only enhance our ability to produce high-quality glass substrates but also create high-skilled jobs and drive innovation through our partnership with Georgia Tech,” said Absolics CEO Jun Rok Oh, in a news release, alluding to the fact that the technology came from research out of Georgia Tech and that the company continues to work with the university to build its local cadre of engineers. “Absolics is proud to contribute to the resilience and competitiveness of the American semiconductor industry.”

The first CHIPS Act award relating to the semiconductor supply chain, not silicon itself, will help Absolics as it continues on a path toward commercializing a relatively new technology.

Researchers say that using glass instead of plastic allows chip makers to more densely pack circuits on the substrate while reducing heat and power consumption. Glass also moves data more quickly, an important point with the rise of cloud-based applications. These properties will be key to affordably powering artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other coming advances in the computing space. The funding is also helping Absolics deepen a partnership with the Department of Defense.

More broadly, the CHIPS Act is part of an array of industrial policies enacted by the Biden administration to shore up national security by ensuring supply-chain resilience in critical technologies.

Often, China has been the target of such measures, and the Biden administration has placed controls on the export of high-end chip-making equipment to the country. At the outset, the Absolics packaging materials will be shipped to Asia, where the industry is still concentrated, though officials hope the value chain will move westward.

Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, issued a news release highlighting the proposed funding; Mr. Ossoff was present at the 2022 Absolics groundbreaking and has led multiple trips to Korea to support investors expanding in Georgia.

The Commerce Department noted that it has received more than 660 statements of interest and hundreds of applications for its first funding opportunities under the CHIPS act. Absolics was the ninth project to be selected.

Other announced awards include a proposed $8.5 billion for Intel projects in four states, $6.4 billion toward Samsung’s $40 billion Texas complex and $6.6 billion toward Taiwan-based TSMC’s efforts to build three plants in Arizona, among others.

Read more: With CHIPS Act Passed, SKC Boosts Georgia Semiconductor Packaging Investment to $600M