There is near-unanimous agreement among stakeholders in Microelectronics Commons that the initiative is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to accelerate the domestic prototyping and production of microchips for national defense, according to one of the program’s leaders. The Microelectronics Commons initiative, launched in 2022, is intended to connect the Defense Department’s acquisition process to regional networks of researchers and designers, along with commercial semiconductor chip vendors. “They don’t want to waste the opportunity. That is huge, I think, for this,” Stephanie Lin,...