Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Chair, I appreciate consideration of my amendment No. 153 to provide an $10.8 million increase within the RDT&E-Defense Wide Account for the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program's (IBAS) advanced packaging infrastructure enablement of standardized assembly design kits program. This program will support innovative semiconductor manufacturing processes critical to national security.

Semiconductors support nearly all Department of Defense (DoD) activities. Ensuring secure access to leading-edge semiconductors, however, is a challenge.

The IBAS Program ensures that the DoD is positioned to effectively address industrial base issues and support the National Security Innovation Base. Its mission includes strengthening and protecting the domestic semiconductor supply chain to provide access to leading-edge products and capabilities. One of the next-generation semiconductor technologies that IBAS is focusing on is advanced packaging.

Advanced packaging is an innovative semiconductor manufacturing process that fully integrates all component chips into a single, highly functional chip. Currently, 98 percent of advanced packaging integrated processes are done in Asia, where foreign entities can insert malicious processes in a way that is not easily identifiable. IBAS is working to provide secure, credible, and reliable domestic advanced packaged semiconductor manufacturing capability.

The design, fabrication, and packaging of leading-edge advanced package chips are becoming substantially more complex. To manage this complexity and ensure compatibility across different systems, standardized assembly design kits are essential. These kits provide a set of design rules and guidelines that streamline the manufacturing process. By establishing a uniform framework, standardized kits enable faster development and deployment of advanced packaging technologies, which is critical for meeting the DoD's high-performance and security standards. My amendment will allow the Department of Defense to leverage existing public-private partnerships to quickly expand domestic U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing development platforms for critical advanced semiconductor system integration, including through the enablement of standardized design kits.

U.S. global leadership in semiconductors depends on U.S. owned firms operating at the leading edge of advanced packaging technologies. The next generation of electronic devices will require significantly greater functional density, in other words, packing chips together even more tightly than current technology allows. This requires technical leadership in semiconductor advanced packaging processes, including the enablement of standardized assembly kits.

I believe Congress should continue to allocate the necessary resources to update our domestic microelectronics security framework. I am proud of the work being done in NeoCity, my district's semiconductor technology hub, to advance domestic semiconductor manufacturing technology. This development is vital to strengthening our defense supply chain. I look forward to working with my colleagues to support this critical goal.

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