The Department of Commerce announced the first awards in September for the National Semiconductor Technology Center’s new Workforce Center for Excellence, which is set to receive $250 million from the department over 10 years. The initial awards total $11.5 million for seven institutions; the department expects that they will help train more than 12 000 people over the next two years. One award will establish the Center for Education of Microchip Designers at UCLA that will teach hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students how to design, fabricate, and test their own chips. Other funded projects target high school and college students, semiconductor technicians, and hardware verification engineers. Also in September, NSF and the Commerce Department announced a $30 million funding opportunity to establish a hub that will manage the National Network for Microelectronics Education, which plans to spend up to $200 million preparing people for roles in the microelectronics workforce....

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