Federal funding to accelerate semiconductor research, career training at Portland State

Portland State University is a core partner in a new NSF Regional Innovation Engine that will advance semiconductor technology across Oregon.

The engine, Frontiers of Advanced Semiconductor Technology (FAST), is led by Oregon State University and unites nearly 100 partners statewide. NSF will provide FAST up to $160 million over 10 years, beginning with $15 million over the first two years, to grow Oregon's semiconductor ecosystem.

FAST is one of 12 NSF Regional Innovation Engines announced across 20 states in July 2026. Oregon is the only state with end-to-end semiconductor capability, from chip design to fabrication, and the FAST coalition brings together universities including Oregon State and the University of Oregon, along with industry, government, and community partners, to build on that strength.

As a core partner, Portland State will expand its research relationships and internship opportunities so that any student who wants to work in the semiconductor industry can gain the experience and confidence to excel. That includes building out PSU's Discover Internships in Semiconductor Careers (DISC) program, which places students in paid, hands-on roles across the Silicon Forest.

Students like Ben Christensen, a rising senior who is getting hands-on experience at TSS Microscopy in Hillsboro this summer through DISC.

"They have shown a lot of faith in me and given me a lot of free reign to make a lot of design choices for a project that they have been wanting to get to for a long time, but just haven't had the people available to do it," said Christensen who majors in electrical engineering at PSU. "It's been a great combination of throwing me in the deep end to figure things out myself, while still being around for all the support I could need."

What Portland State's researchers will do

At the center of PSU's research role is the use of artificial intelligence to accelerate the design and fabrication of computer chips. Designing an advanced chip today can take months. Christof Teuscher, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his team are developing AI tools that shorten the process and help solve one of the hardest problems in modern chips: heat. As chips pack in more computing power, keeping them cool becomes critical. The team will also apply AI to the search for new materials.

Professor of Chemistry Andrea Goforth, who also serves as director of PSU's CEMN and co-lead of the DISC program, and her group work on light-sensitive materials, called photoresists, that enable manufacturers to print circuit features far smaller than the eye can see, and they use PSU's advanced electron microscopes to inspect those materials at the atomic scale. Supporting this work is PSU's Veloce emulator, a specialized system that lets researchers test chip designs before any silicon is manufactured.

"Oregon's semiconductor future depends on the people who will build it, and that is where Portland State delivers," said PSU President Ann Cudd. "This award puts us shoulder to shoulder with Oregon State and our industry partners on a challenge that matters to the whole economy. What I care about most is what it means for students: More of them will train on real equipment, work on real research, and step into the semiconductor careers Oregon needs to fill."

The FAST partnership reflects Portland State's strategic plan, Future in Focus, and its commitment to interdisciplinary, public impact research that tackles complex regional challenges. FAST brings PSU engineers, chemists, and computer scientists together on a single problem that matters to Oregon's economy, and it draws graduate students into that work, advancing the role graduate education plays in driving the university's research enterprise.

"The FAST award does two things at once for Portland State. It funds faculty and graduate researchers to work on problems the semiconductor industry needs solved now, from chip design to the materials inside the chips, and it keeps that talent in Oregon," said Rick Tankersley, PSU's vice president for research and graduate studies and dean of the Graduate School. "A research university proves its value when its people do the work and the results land in the regional economy. That is what this partnership is built to do."

Portland State's commitments to the coalition

Alongside the federally funded work, Portland State has committed its own resources to the FAST coalition, including:

• Establishing the PSU Semiconductor Innovation Nanoscience Center (SINC), offering shared instrumentation training and advanced metrology to coalition partners; and making the Center for Electron Microscopy and Nanofabrication (CEMN) available to FAST.
• Investing in faculty expertise by hiring two tenure-track faculty in semiconductor and microelectronics disciplines such as metrology, design, and testing.
• Leading K-20 workforce development by aligning semiconductor curricula across institutions and building on PSU's Microchip Industry Collaborative for Research, Outreach, Training, and Education Coordination (MICRO-TEC) with Portland Community College (PCC) to expand stackable, transferable credentials.
• Exploring the development of a co-located 1,500-square-foot training and innovation space in Hillsboro with PCC, and making lab and incubator space at the PSU Business Accelerator available to FAST semiconductor and AI startups.
• Leveraging its role as a leading minority-serving institution to widen pathways into STEM careers, with a focus on retention and success for students from all communities.

"What sets PSU apart is how many doors lead in. Students arrive from community colleges, from other careers, from the region's high schools, and they leave as the engineers the Silicon Forest runs on," Teuscher said. "Through FAST, PSU will co-design the AI tools that reshape how chips are built, and our students will do that work alongside the industry partners who hire them."

"The students in our program learn on the same tools the industry uses. FAST lets us bring more of them into that work and connect them to the jobs waiting across the Silicon Forest," Goforth said.