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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

MediaTek Plans West Lafayette, Indiana, Semiconductor Chip Design Center

07/08/2022
Global fabless chipmaker MediaTek Inc. will establish its first Midwest semiconductor chip design center in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The company also shared its intention to create a new research partnership with Purdue to collaborate on engineering talent development and new research on next-generation computing and communications chip design.

“We believe strongly that being in Indiana means we’ll have access to some of the best engineering talent in the world,” said Dr. Kou-Hung Lawrence Loh, Corporate Senior Vice President of MediaTek Inc. and President of MediaTek USA, Inc. “Not just at Purdue, but West Lafayette is only four hours away from nearly a dozen of the top engineering schools in the country. In the post pandemic world, top candidates tell us they want to be closer to home, near family and they want to have a real house and great schools. Indiana offers all that and more.”

MediaTek Inc. is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedia products and digital subscriber line services as well as optical disc drives.

Governor Eric J. Holcomb said, “We are thrilled to have MediaTek, a leading global semiconductor company, invest in our great state and the country’s leading engineering university. We have committed $1.4M of state funding over the next three years to help make this partnership possible and look forward to reaping the benefits of the intellectual capital that will be borne out of this new design center, and the talent that will emerge from it.”

This novel partnership in Indiana represents a new U.S. growth model for MediaTek USA; outside the traditional centers of gravity for chip design, according to company officials.

“Attracting a world-class chip design firm to Indiana has been a longtime goal for our team,” Purdue President Mitch Daniels said. “I applaud Secretary Chambers, the IEDC and, of course, the whole team here at Purdue for doing the hard work necessary to get a global company to take a look at Indiana and all we have to offer. This investment by MediaTek is a commitment to Indiana and an opportunity to grow its U.S. design center workforce here in the Midwest. I welcome this effort, which underscores the vitality and growth of the innovative work happening in our Discovery Park District and signals clear support for the semiconductor industry’s growth and development here.”

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