On November 10, it was reported that Corning is mainly known for producing smartphone glass, but is little known in the semiconductor industry. However, the company's contribution to advanced chip manufacturing processes cannot be ignored. Recently, Corning reached a preliminary agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receive US$32 million (IT Home notes: currently approximately 230 million yuan) in the Chip and Science Act funding.

According to IT Home, Corning produces a variety of glass materials used to make photomasks, including high-purity fused silica, ultra-low expansion glass (ULE) and extremely low expansion glass (Extreme ULE). The main advantage of ULE and Extreme ULE materials is their extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion, which ensures maximum consistency in harsh extreme ultraviolet (EUV) environments and excellent uniformity to reduce photomask "ripples" to minimize circuit variability (i.e., reduce performance and power variability).

Corning's ULE glass is used to make photomasks for deep ultraviolet (DUV) and EUV lithography, while Extreme ULE materials are used for next-generation high numerical aperture (High-NA) EUV lithography.

Ensuring that U.S. companies that use advanced DUV, low numerical aperture EUV, and high numerical aperture EUV equipment have access to the materials used to make photomasks is crucial for the entire industry, especially companies such as Intel, Gcore, TSMC, Texas Instruments and Samsung OEM.

Corning's $32 million in funding will be used to expand its manufacturing plant in Canton, New York to increase production of specialty materials such as high-purity fused silica (HPFS) and Extreme ULE glass, a project that will add 130 manufacturing jobs and more than 175 construction jobs.