President Claudia Sheinbaum announces the creation of the National Center for Semiconductor Design “Kutsari”

By Presidency of Mexico

This press release was published in English using an automatic translation system

With the goal of making Mexico a scientific and technological power, the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, announced the creation of the National Center for Semiconductor Design "Kutsari", in which Mexican scientists from public higher education institutions will be able to develop new designs for this type of devices, which can be patented according to international standards that protect innovation, based on modifications to the Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property (LFPPI).

“The Kutsari Semiconductor Design Center or Kutsari Project: National Semiconductor Design Center, is the union of many scientists, technological developers, from public higher education institutions, who will put all their intelligence, design, creativity, to generate new semiconductor designs,” he explained.

He said that the changes to the law will speed up the process for registering technological innovations in less time than is currently the case, which will allow semiconductors to move from design to production lines for sale.

“We are going to speed up the entire patent process so that they can be sold, combined with public companies, with private companies, for development; so that it does not only remain in the design, which would be enough, because then it is patented by a higher education institution and its researchers, and can be marketed or can be incorporated into a public, private or mixed company for a semiconductor production line.

He reported that the headquarters of the “Kutsari” Semiconductor Design Center —which means “sand” in Purépecha— will be located in Puebla, Jalisco and Sonora, where the development of this type of technology is part of the Sonora Plan and will be coordinated by the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE) and the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), but will also have the participation of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN).

“It is a very good thing for the country. There is already a lot of research in Mexico, now what we are doing is putting all these minds together,” he said.

He stressed that the development of semiconductors is part of the Plan Mexico, which aims to produce more products in the country with the collaboration of the national private initiative and foreign investments that are established based on regional development so that this will pave the way for scientific and technological innovations in the national territory.

"We want there to be scientific and technological development in Mexico that allows for the production of all kinds of innovations in our country, so yes, it is part of the Mexico Plan," he said.

The Secretary of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation, Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, said that the project will cover several aspects: proposing a legal and regulatory framework to strengthen the maturation and transfer of technology in the area; promoting ecosystems that include the entire supply chain in Development Poles and encouraging technological production in semiconductor electronics.

The national coordinator of the Semiconductor Project and general director of Innovation Wellbeing of Mexico, Edmundo Gutiérrez Domínguez, explained that the semiconductor industry has a supply chain of three links: one, the design; two, the manufacturing; and three, the testing, encapsulation and assembly of the chips.

For its development, a strategy was established to develop a public policy to support the program for the development of the industry aligned with the Mexico Plan, which includes the creation of the National Center for Semiconductor Design "Kutsari", which will be consolidated by 2027.

This will take advantage of the Mexican scientific experience that will be developed over four decades to, in the first instance, provide solutions for the local and global market in the automotive, household appliance, and medical equipment industries, among other strategic devices for the country.

He announced that an Accelerated Training Program for designers will also be created to consolidate the National Center for Semiconductor Design, as well as to provide training services to other design centers in both the public and private sectors.

In a second stage, towards 2026, the definition of the semiconductor manufacturing model is proposed, that is, considering a public, private or mixed company, for the construction of a factory that could be consolidated in 2029 and subsequently by 2030 guarantee the three links in the semiconductor supply chain.

The Secretary of Anti-Corruption and Good Government, Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez, reported that semiconductors can be a strategic sector in Mexico and, therefore, the LFPPI will be modified to bring it into line with international standards and so that scientists are sure that their innovations are truly protected, through a right of reservation for a period of 12 months, as well as to increase the speed at which the procedures are carried out to reduce the time from more than four to three years.

The director general of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), Santiago Nieto Castillo, said that the changes to the LFPPI are intended to grant a provisional patent to have the right to the section and thus guarantee that the innovation is not registered anywhere else in the world, and also seek to vindicate the ownership of the rights, when plagiarism is proven in the generation of the patent.

He announced that, together with the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation, work is being done to enable a group of people, through a confidentiality clause, to examine 48 thousand patents that are pending analysis in the country.

The President of Mexico was accompanied by the Director General of Cinvestav, Alberto Sánchez Hernández; the Director General of INAOE, David Sánchez de la Llave; the Head of the Design Center in Guadalajara, Ramón Parra Michel; the Head of the Design Center in Puebla, Alejandro Bautista Castillo; the Director General of CIDESI, Carlos Rubio González; the Director General of the UNAM Physics Institute, Cecilia Noguez Garrido; and the Director General of CIMAV, Leticia Torres Guerra.

As well as the head of the Semiconductor Laboratory at INAOE, Alfonso Torres Jácome; the Secretary of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation of Puebla, Celina Peña Guzmán; the Undersecretary of Technological Development, Linkage and Development of Puebla, Patricia Guzmán Velázquez; the Secretary of Economic Development of Jalisco, Cindy Blanco Ochoa; the Senior Designer of INAOE, Miguel Rocha Pérez and of the National Laboratory of Ultracold Matter and Quantum Information, Rocío Jáuregui.