Should the Pentagon have used Commerce Department funds for semiconductors?

[rangerrebew]

Should the Pentagon have used Commerce Department funds for semiconductors?
By André Brunel
 Jul 1, 2024, 02:40 PM
 
The U.S. Defense Department has successfully, albeit surreptitiously, swiped $3.5 billion from the Commerce Department’s CHIPS Act funding to subsidize Intel’s creation of a classified advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility called Secure Enclave. Although being specifically built for defense and intelligence state-of-the-art computer chip needs, the funding for Secure Enclave was not included in the original CHIPS Act law. The Commerce Department, unsurprisingly, objected to losing control of almost 10% of the CHIPS Act’s manufacturing grants when this funding was commandeered by the Defense Department for Secure Enclave.

Advocates for Secure Enclave argued that Trusted Foundry, a program in existence since 2004 where Defense Department inspectors certify commercial semiconductor sector manufacturing facilities, was not secure enough for some types of chips, including state-of-the-art ones. Nevertheless, the reaction to this budget allocation legerdemain has been widespread disapproval.


“I don’t know how this happened, but it should not have,” said Charles Wessner, an expert on global innovation policy at the Center for Strategic International Studies think tank.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/07/01/should-the-pentagon-have-used-commerce-department-funds-for-semiconductors/

[DefiantMassRINO]

How can DoD take money not allocated to them by Congress?

How do we know DoD won't waste the money manufacturing littoral combat microprocessors?

DoD procurement process has a habit of wasting money on useless, unproven stuff built using a defective procurement model.

[PeteS in CA]

OK, I'm confused. On one hand people decry "off-shoring", the move of manufacturing, including of semiconductors, outside of the very expensive US. With the other side of their collective mouth people are decrying a measure that brings some semiconductor manufacturing back onshore.

BTW, the three US companies capable of designing and manufacturing high-end processors and chipsets are Intel, AMD, and Freescale. High-end processors and chipsets are not commodity items that anybody and their brother can make in their garage. If the Pentagon wants high-end processors and chipsets, their options are limited, and Intel is the market leader.