HP wins $50 million in federal CHIPS Act funding to expand semiconductor work in Corvallis

Jamie Parfitt, Pat Dooris, KGW

CORVALLIS, Ore. (KGW/KTVZ) — Hewlett Packard's longtime facility in Corvallis is set to receive both state and federal support for expansion and modernization as part of the CHIPS Act, officials announced Tuesday. The company is slated to receive up to $50 million from the Biden administration and another $9.5 million from the state of Oregon, KGW reported.

Biden administration officials said that they'd signed a non-binding agreement with HP for the Corvallis facility, part of the company's "lab-to-fab" system of research, development and manufacturing.

The feds estimated that this investment would create almost 150 construction jobs and more than 100 manufacturing jobs. They highlighted HP's specialization in microfluidics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), which could help drive performance and efficiency of semiconductor-based hardware.

"Among other products, the proposed funding would support the manufacturing of silicon devices that are key components of life sciences lab equipment, which are used in drug discovery, single-cell research, and cell line development," the administration said in a statement.

HP has had a campus in Corvallis since 1976, playing a significant role in some of the company's earliest commercial successes.

“HP invented its inkjet printer here in Corvallis, and the facility still remains one of the company’s leading research posts, contributing to our state’s leadership in technological innovation,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said in a statement. “Oregon is a leader in the semiconductor industry because of our world class talent and strong partnerships with higher education.”

Kotek was in Corvallis on Tuesday for the announcement, joining Laurie E. Locascio, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and several of Oregon's state and federal lawmakers.

“It is imperative that we continue to curate and grow a U.S. semiconductor ecosystem where fabs are receiving the latest technology onshore, and then bringing those innovations to market. This all happens with proposed investments in companies like HP,” Locascio said in a statement. “The opportunity that companies such as HP have to push our industry further than we’ve ever gone before is inspiring, motivating and an incredible moment to be a part of."

According to HP President and CEO Enrique Lores, the government funding will help accelerate innovation in microfluidics and MEMS technology.

“This proposed investment provides HP with an opportunity to modernize and expand our facility to further invest in our microfluidics technology, which is the study of the behavior and control of fluid on a microscopic scale," Lores said in a statement. "Microfluidics has the potential to drive revolutionary changes across industries, delivering speed, efficiency and precision to help pave the way for the next generation of innovation in life sciences and technology."

He did not say how much HP would be investing in the project, but the company intends to claim the Department of the Treasury's Investment Tax Credit for up to 25% of qualified capital expenditures as it works to power all of its operations around the globe with 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

It may be another year or more before any of the promised positions at HP in Corvallis open up.

HP is the latest of several companies to receive a CHIPS Act windfall for expansion in Oregon. Arizona-based Microchip Technology Inc. received $72 million to expand its facility in Gresham, and Intel received a whopping $8.5 billion to invest in its Hillsboro campus — each part of larger investments from the companies in those local facilities.

At the same time, Intel revealed earlier this month that it will slash 15% of its global workforce, accounting for some 15,000 jobs, amid slumping revenue and significant financial losses.

The structural dynamics of flow

When lawmakers and officials gathered at HP's facility in Corvallis to announce the investment on Tuesday, they stood in front of a backdrop meant to represent the garage where HP was founded way back in 1939. On a different wall in the same room there were displays of technology developed by the company throughout the decades.

Many of those dated pieces of technology provide an interesting contrast to the cutting edge research of today.

HP is exploring the field of microfluids, which involves the movement of very small amounts of fluids through devices — almost like a circuit board, as Boston University explains it, but using fluids instead of electricity.

Tuan Tran, an executive at HP who was present at Tuesday's announcement, said that the field represents an exciting prospect for the future.

"We're into drug dispensing," he said. "We're into single-cell drug interaction for researching cancer. We're into 3-D printing and some other future things we wont talk about today ... but some very, very interesting future things happening in our labs."

Locascio, too, has a vested interest in microfluidics. She manages the federal CHIPS team for the Biden administration, and she's a biotech scientist and inventor with 12 patents.

"On a personal note … a lot of people have already noted that microfluidics is a core part of my life's work and my research," she said. "And at the end of the day I'm just an inventor at heart, and I have to say — you put me in front of this garage and I want to go in and tinker. This is awesome to be here. I know firsthand the innovations that microfluidics offers. Applied to the life sciences, (it) can be game changing, leading to new tools for drug discovery and single-cell analysis for advanced diagnostics — these can really bring breakthroughs to the health care industry."

And according to HP's Tran, it's not a huge leap from things like printers to microfluidics. Both are about the delivery of fluids at a miniscule scale.

"That has applications in many other spaces," Tran said. "We're a technology company at the end of the day. We happen to have products in PC and print. But really our core foundation is a technology company ... We find opportunities and solve the world's problems through technology."

"When I took my tour here, it was one of the things that really, it was a 'wow' factor," added Gov. Kotek. "You think about the changes in medicine, and people come up with these great ideas. But you need the technology to actually implement it. And to see some of the work that's coming on the microfluidics, (it) has real-life application. So it's going to make life better for a lot of folks, and we're doing it here in Oregon."