Officials christen NHanced Semiconductors WestGate facility, tout future expansion
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NHanced President and CEO Bob Patti said production in the cleanrooms will begin later this year. (Cate Charron / Inside INdiana Business)
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Andrea Richter-Garry of the IEDC, U.S. Senator Todd Young, NHanced president Bob Patti and Kyle Werner of Team Crane cut the ribbon on the new NHanced facility. (Cate Charron / Inside INdiana Business)
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One of two cleanrooms at NHanced Semiconductors’ new facility in Odon. (Cate Charron / Inside INdiana Business)
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U.S. Sen. Todd Young said Indiana was on a “hot streak” of development in the microelectronics industry. (Cate Charron / Inside INdiana Business)
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(Cate Charron / Inside INdiana Business)
Bob Patti hoisted his coffee in the air Friday afternoon and proclaimed it was the last time anyone would drink one of those in the cleanroom he and dozens of stakeholders were standing in. Come July, that space will be filled with semiconductor chips being produced for the U.S. military among other clients.
Government officials, university administrators, military officers and industry professionals celebrated Chicago-based NHanced Semiconductors’ completion of the first phase of its WestGate One project. Each of those stakeholders had a hand in bringing the microelectronics company to Indiana and building the industry in the state—something they say is the economy of the future.
The new facility houses two cleanrooms, including one designated for its package assembly line and the other for process development and training.
“Being able to have that close proximity to a chunk of our customer base is very important,” NHanced President Patti told Inside INdiana Business. “It is the immediacy of collaboration that we can get here.”
As an advanced packing specialist, NHanced is essentially in a different market than the major semiconductor companies producing millions of parts. The company is a low-volume producer, which allows it to work on more specialized chips at lower development costs.
The location at Crane, Patti said, positions the company to bring industry-leading semiconductors to the defense industry. It also allows for greater industry collaboration in an area he believes will become the Silicon Valley of semiconductors.
“As a U.S.-based pure play advanced packaging foundry, we are a vital part of the government’s needs and requirements for semiconductors,” Patti said. “That’s one of the reasons that there will be a much larger building behind us in the next couple of years.”
Bob Patti says he is hopeful Indiana is the next Silicon Valley for microelectronics and semiconductors.
The next stage of the project is a more than 70,000-square-foot office and cleanroom space built behind the current facility.
The facility will eventually employ over 500 people at the location by 2028, and the first phase will result in about 100 workers getting hired. Salaries will average over $100,000 a year. Stakeholders are also planning workforce development initiatives for the industry in the region.
NHanced’s growing Indiana presence
The company is rapidly expanding, which Patti calls a “20-year overnight success.”
Located inside the WestGate@Crane Technology Park in Odon, NHanced is part of the WestGate One campus, which is touted as the first semiconductor foundry in the U.S. built specifically for advanced package manufacturing. The company serves as the anchor tenant along with three other companies on the 10-acre plot.
The company’s niche is advanced packaging, which essentially means they “stack” chips to improve power and efficiency; those stacked chips amount to about 20% of a human hair. Rather than produce semiconductors, NHanced makes minuscule optimizations within the chips to make them faster and use less power.
Ground was broken on the campus in November 2022, and NHanced contributed to the total $236 million investment to build and equip a 150,000-square-foot plant.
“We have no small plans for Indiana,” Patti said during his keynote at the ribbon cutting.
Bob Patti talks about how being located in WestGate is important for client correspondence, industry collaboration and tax dollar use.
In December, the company also announced it is pursuing a $152 million investment into a mostly vacant Bloomington Cook Medical facility, which would result in at least 250 high-wage jobs. The building has a clean room, and NHanced can start production sooner than new construction would allow.
Patti previously told Inside INdiana Business that he estimates the company will grow 350-to-400% within the next year as the semiconductor industry increases its focus on innovation and specialty production.
Over the next five to seven years, Patti said he expects the company will have over 1,000 workers in the state.
National designations and funding
U.S. Sen. Todd Young applauded NHanced and its stakeholders for positioning themselves to produce semiconductors—a move, he said, will both build up the state’s defense economy and improve national security. Young helped sponsor the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which routes significant investment into rebuilding the semiconductor industry domestically while relations with China bubble.
Indiana is on a “hot streak,” Young said, pointing to the state’s business development and recent designation as a regional technology and innovation hub for microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing. All of which strengthens national security, he said, while creating high-paying “jobs of the future” for Hoosiers.
NHanced has applied for CHIPS Act funding, Patti said. As a Silicon Crossroads Microelectronic Commons Hub, the state will in part receive $33 million in federal funding from the CHIPS Act.
“It’s very exciting because this at once benefits our entire economy throughout the United States,” Young told IIB. “From just our individual Hoosier household standpoint, it’s really exciting to be producing those things in the state of Indiana because you get paid a very high wage in order to make semiconductors for NHanced or for other similar companies.”
Sen. Todd Young tells Inside INdiana Business how his federal legislation will support industry in Indiana.
However, he said this is a group effort and is looking forward to more companies, like NHanced, entering the industry locally and nationally. These milestones are incentives for businesses to base themselves in Indiana, Young said.
With advanced packaging, Patti said the cost of entry is significantly lower, meaning more startups can find their footing in the industry, spurring more innovation. The facility’s next expansion will have space for such collaboration, he said.
“This next generation with chiplets, the additive manufacturing, the advanced packaging we do is going to bring back a new renaissance, a new golden era of semiconductor startups,” Patti said. “I am hopeful that Indiana will be the location of the next Silicon Valley.”