Osceola County is taking bigger steps toward becoming a U.S. hub for semiconductor research and manufacturing.
With phones, cars, computers all relying on tiny components to do the large work asked of them, the development of their “advanced packaging”— the process of assembling and stacking them to enhance their output and production— is a multi-billion dollar industry.
And Osceola County— specifically, NeoCity— wants a piece of that, since 98% of that work is currently done in foreign countries.
The Florida Semiconductor Engine is tasked with bringing companies and employees to do that right here.
“The ‘fab’ (the “clean room at The Center for NeoVation, just across the walk from the OC building, the Engine’s home base) is doing that today,” said Tawny Olore, the newly-announced CEO of the Engine. “It’s important to the county’s mission to bring those on shore.”
She and the Engine were introduced to local stakeholders at an April 22 ribbon-cutting event. Olore is tasked with collaborating with industry partners to form a center of semiconductor research and manufacturing innovation here in Osceola County. Much of that work could come on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, which has invested or earmarked $120 million of its own funding. NeoCity has already been awarded $15 million up front from the National Science Foundation and the federally-funded CHIPS and Science Act, with the potential to receive $160 million over the next decade should the work continue.
Those funds will be used, Olore said at the April 22 event, to bring in the tech companies that will develop and carry out those advanced packaging technologies. The Engine will also partner with the area’s education bedrocks like UCF, the University of South Florida, University of Florida (which already has a NeoCity presence with the Florida Semiconductor Institute that took up residence in February) and Valencia College to create degree and training programs to train and form the workforce for those high-paying jobs. That local and organic way of building a workforce— like across the street at NeoCity Academy— means Osceola County’s best and brightest scientific minds for working with semiconductors and other microelectronics will be able to stay home to get a great job.
“Where there’s grass outside (the OUC and Center for NeoVation), there will be new companies,” she said. “That will be our success.”
For more on the Engine, check out its website at SemiconductorEngine.org.
