BAE secures $35 million to enhance F-35 and commercial chip production

The U.S. Commerce Department said Monday it plans to award $35 million to BAE Systems to quadruple production in New Hampshire for key semiconductor chips used in F-35 fighter jets and commercial satellites.

The announcement is the first from the $52.7 billion “Chips for America” semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy program approved by Congress in August 2022 to ramp up U.S. chips production amid concerns about reliance on Asia.

President Joe Biden said in a statement “over the coming year, the Department of Commerce will award billions more to make more semiconductors in America” and boost research and development.

The department said it signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms to provide $35 million to BAE Systems Electronic Systems, a unit of BAE Systems, to support modernizing the company’s Nashua, New Hampshire Microelectronics Center.

The Pentagon plans to spend $1.7 trillion on the F-35 program including buying 2,500 planes in the coming decades. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the chips were critical to F-15s and F-35s.

“We do not want to be in a position where another country can cut us off in a moment of crisis,” Sullivan told reporters. Reuters