Purdue President Mung Chiang signed an international agreement to partner with Micron, Tokyo Electron and other educational institutions in the United States and Japan on Sunday in Hiroshima, Japan.
These groups plan to establish the “UPWARDS Network” for workforce advancement, research and development in semiconductors, according to a Purdue news release Monday.
The announcement was made during this year’s Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, which also included other world leaders. The signatories later met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the end of the summit.
“Purdue is the leading American university in semiconductor talent, innovation and industry partnership,” Chiang said during the signing ceremony, according to the release. “We are excited to partner with the semiconductor companies and other institutions for semiconductor collaboration between the U.S. and Japan. We will also launch the Negishi Fellowship in addition to the UPWARDS Network program to strengthen such collaboration.”
Micron and Tokyo Electron, as founding industry partners, the National Science Foundation and universities together will invest over $60 million for the five-year project.
This is Purdue’s third semiconductors global partnership this month, including an alliance with the government of India for the India Semiconductor Mission on May 9 and forming a partnership with Belgium-based imec for microelectronics industry research and semiconductor workforce development.
Purdue is now the only university in the U.S. with bilateral partnerships in semiconductors with Europe, India and Japan.
