(The Hill) — The Trump administration plans to take a $150 million stake in xLight, a startup developing laser technology to advance semiconductor manufacturing. 

The Commerce Department said Monday that it has signed a non-binding preliminary letter of intent to provide federal incentives to the startup under the CHIPS and Science Act in exchange for equity. 

The company xLight, which counts former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger as executive chairman, seeks to develop free-electron lasers to improve one stage of chip production known as lithography, which uses light to print patterns onto silicon wafers. 

“For far too long, America ceded the frontier of advanced lithography to others,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. “Under President Trump, those days are over.”  

“This partnership would back a technology that can fundamentally rewrite the limits of chipmaking,” he continued. “Best of all, we would be doing it here at home.”  

The most advanced lithography currently relies on laser-produced plasma, which xLight argues is a “significant limiting factor” in chip production and hopes to replace it with its free-electron lasers. 

“xLight’s FEL platform represents the kind of breakthrough innovation that restores American leadership, secures our supply chains, and guarantees that the next generation of semiconductors is born in the United States,” Lutnick added. “This is the CHIPS program at its best.” 

The equity stake in xLight is the latest such investment by the Trump administration, which has also taken stakes in Intel, U.S. Steel and several critical mineral firms, including MP Materials, Lithium Americas and Trilogy Metals. 

The approach is relatively unique compared to previous administrations, which have largely focused on boosting industries through grants and loans. The Biden administration took the latter approach in distributing CHIPS funding to the semiconductor industry.