Space Forge expands US semiconductor strategy with Texas A&M
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Space Forge wants to manufacture semiconductor materials in orbit, but one of its most significant expansion moves is taking place firmly on the ground.
The Cardiff-based advanced materials company has signed a master research agreement with the Texas A&M University System, laying the groundwork for its first US semiconductor materials manufacturing and processing capability. The agreement covers future research across the university system and will initially focus on terrestrial material growth, characterisation and processing.
At first glance, building semiconductor infrastructure in Texas might appear removed from Space Forge’s central proposition, which is based on exploiting conditions in space that cannot readily be replicated in terrestrial factories. In practice, the Texas agreement helps explain how the company expects that model to work commercially.
Its strategy does not involve shifting a conventional semiconductor fabrication plant into orbit. Instead, Space Forge is concentrating on specialised stages of advanced material production where microgravity and the space environment could provide a measurable advantage, then connecting those processes with manufacturing and research infrastructure on Earth.
That distinction may determine whether in-space manufacturing develops from a technical experiment into a viable part of the semiconductor supply chain.
Space Forge is building a hybrid supply chain
Space Forge is focused on wide-bandgap and ultra-wide-bandgap materials including gallium nitride, silicon carbide, aluminium nitride and diamond, all of which have applications in fields such as power electronics, advanced communications, quantum systems, defence and high-performance computing.
Their performance can be affected by defects, impurities and thermal instability during crystal growth, which is why Space Forge is investigating whether the orbital environment can offer more favourable conditions for producing exceptionally high-quality material. Microgravity can reduce convection, while vacuum conditions and thermal characteristics in orbit may provide further benefits during crystal growth.
That proposition received an important technical test aboard ForgeStar-1, a Welsh-built satellite launched in June 2025 as an in-orbit manufacturing demonstrator. In December that year, Space Forge successfully generated plasma aboard the spacecraft, demonstrating that the conditions required for gas-phase crystal growth could be created and controlled on an autonomous commercial platform in low Earth orbit.
The achievement did not mean Space Forge had begun producing commercial volumes of semiconductor material in space, because ForgeStar-1 remains a technology demonstration mission rather than a production platform.
The spacecraft is not expected to deliver manufactured material back to Earth either. Space Forge says ForgeStar-1 will undergo a planned atmospheric demise after gathering data needed for later missions, while future spacecraft are intended to incorporate the technologies required to manufacture material, return it to Earth and potentially support reusable operations.
The company’s longer-term model is therefore a hybrid production system in which space-grown crystal material could provide a high-quality starting point for subsequent processing and scaling on Earth. Space Forge has described this as a way of using orbital crystal growth alongside terrestrial processing rather than attempting to replace existing semiconductor production infrastructure.
That positioning matters commercially because semiconductor fabrication plants already involve enormous capital investment, established equipment ecosystems and tightly controlled production processes. Space Forge does not need to recreate that infrastructure in orbit if it can instead use space to improve a narrow but valuable part of the materials chain.
Texas gives an orbital manufacturer the infrastructure it needs on Earth
The Texas A&M agreement provides Space Forge with access to a semiconductor ecosystem that can support the terrestrial side of that strategy, including the Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute and the AggieFab Nanofabrication Facility.
Available infrastructure includes cleanrooms, material-processing equipment and characterisation capabilities, alongside access to researchers and a semiconductor workforce. The collaboration will begin with terrestrial material growth, characterisation and processing, with joint research opportunities expected to expand across the Texas A&M System over the following 12 to 24 months.
Texas gives Space Forge another advantage through its proximity to companies already involved in the company’s developing US space-manufacturing network. Space Forge identifies Intuitive Machines, Voyager and Starlab among its collaborators in the state.
In July 2025, the company announced a separate partnership with Intuitive Machines covering the integration of semiconductor manufacturing technology with the US company’s Zephyr orbital return platform, with backing through the Texas Space Commission’s Space Exploration and Research Fund.
Together, those relationships create a cluster of capabilities that extends beyond semiconductor research alone. Space Forge needs orbital platforms, material-processing expertise, return systems and terrestrial semiconductor infrastructure if its model is to operate as a complete supply chain rather than as a series of isolated technical demonstrations.
The timing also coincides with a broader effort to increase semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the US. Research published in 2024 by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting Group projected that US semiconductor manufacturing capacity would rise by 203% between 2022 and 2032, driven partly by investments associated with the CHIPS and Science Act.
The SIA said industry investment encouraged by the legislation had reached nearly $450 billion across 25 states when the report was published, creating an industrial environment that could support new semiconductor technologies and supply-chain models.
For Space Forge, that expansion creates a potentially useful market and research base, but it also raises the standard the company must meet. Space-grown material will have to offer benefits substantial enough to justify introducing orbital operations into a semiconductor sector that is already investing heavily in terrestrial capacity.
The real test is whether orbit earns its place in the supply chain
The technical case for manufacturing in space and the commercial case are not the same, particularly when the claimed advantages of cleaner or less defective semiconductor material must be weighed against the costs and complexity of orbital operations.
Small improvements in material properties can matter significantly in high-end devices, but an orbital manufacturing system must do more than demonstrate that superior material can be produced under controlled conditions. It also has to operate repeatably, survive launch and re-entry requirements and return material in a condition suitable for further processing.
For that reason, Space Forge is putting increasing attention on the return journey as part of the wider manufacturing model. In June 2026, the company secured £10 million in European Space Agency backing to advance satellite return technology intended to support future in-space manufacturing.
The economics are likely to favour materials where relatively small quantities have disproportionately high value rather than commodity semiconductor production, making compound semiconductor substrates and other advanced materials a more plausible early market than direct competition with high-volume terrestrial silicon manufacturing.
That remains an inference from Space Forge’s stated strategy rather than a commercial result the company has already demonstrated. ForgeStar-1 has shown that an important part of the manufacturing environment can be created in orbit, but the company has not yet proved that orbitally produced semiconductor material can be returned and incorporated economically into high-volume industrial supply chains.
Seen in that context, the Texas A&M agreement is less about geographic expansion than about building the terrestrial infrastructure required to commercialise an orbital production model. Space Forge is placing its technology inside existing semiconductor research, processing and supply-chain networks before its manufacturing platform reaches commercial maturity.
If that model succeeds, the role of space in semiconductor production may prove highly specific rather than transformative across the entire industry. Orbit does not need to replace the factory if it can perform one valuable manufacturing step that terrestrial systems cannot match.
Source:
Electronics Weekly
