The new funding follows a joint $187 million investment to expand IBM Canada’s chip packaging facility in Bromont, Que.
Canada will invest $120 million over five years to build a national chip network, as calls intensify for the government to do more to bolster its lagging semiconductor sector.
“Support for Fabric secures Canada’s future in semiconductors and advanced manufacturing,” CMC President Gordon Harling said in a statement.
The new funding follows the April announcement of a joint $187 million investment by IBM and the governments of Canada and Quebec to expand IBM Canada’s chip packaging facility in Bromont, about 50 miles east of Montreal.
Trudeau’s government has, in contrast, promised billions in subsidies to match incentives in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act to lure global auto manufacturers to build electric-vehicle batteries in Canada.
Paul Slaby, director of Canada’s Semiconductor Council, recently complained that Canada lacks an industrial strategy for the chip sector. Speaking at the International Economic Forum of the Americas conference in Montreal in June, Slaby said the Trudeau government only lately started building a dedicated team for the industry. He suggested Canada seek to establish itself in international trade by controlling one niche piece of the supply chain, as the Netherlands has done with its photolithography machine producer ASML Holding NV.
Since the announcement of the Chips Act, more than 50 semiconductor projects have been undertaken in the U.S. Competition between the U.S. and China offers an opportunity to align with American interests, Slaby proposed. “We need a semiconductor pact with the U.S.,” he said.