I-Pulse Wins $250M CHIPS Award for Silicon-Carbide Pulsed Power

The $250 million in CHIPS R&D funding going to I-Pulse Inc. is an unusual entry in the domestic semiconductor push: not an advanced logic fab or a memory plant, but a startup whose primary technical target is solid-state switches for a geothermal drilling technique that uses surges of high-power electricity to break rock underground.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Department of Commerce's CHIPS Research and Development Office signed a definitive agreement with I-Pulse, a privately held U.S. company co-founded by Robert Friedland, who serves as CEO, and Laurent Frescaline, who serves as CTO. The award is for further development of I-Pulse's silicon-carbide semiconductor and pulsed power technology. I-Pulse, which has laboratories in New Mexico, plans to develop those components in partnership with U.S. national laboratories, universities, and specialized manufacturers.

The technical focus is high-temperature, high-current, high-voltage solid-state switches, the kind of devices that standard silicon handles poorly. Silicon carbide's tolerance for extreme electrical and thermal conditions opens up use cases well beyond geothermal: the company also lists underground mining, rock crushing, manufacturing, and defense systems as application areas.

What the reporting does not give you is a commercialization timeline, a breakdown of how the $250 million is structured or conditioned on milestones, or which specific national labs and universities are already part of the program. Silicon carbide's performance advantages have been known for years, and established manufacturers already have meaningful production experience with the material. The gap between R&D success and volume manufacturing is where semiconductor startups most reliably struggle.

The strategic upside is that pulsed-power technology sits where two sustained U.S. government priorities overlap: domestic semiconductor supply chains and next-generation energy. Defense and industrial customers that need ruggedized, high-voltage switching tend to be less price-sensitive than consumer electronics buyers, which gives I-Pulse a plausible near-term commercial path even before geothermal drilling develops into a large market.