Substrate Project Factory One

Overview

A Startup Fab Proposed on Texas A&M Land in Bryan

Substrate's subsidiary, America's Foundry Bryan LLC, applied to the Texas Comptroller under the Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation (JETI) Act for a school tax limitation on Project Factory One, which its application calls a "first of its kind semiconductor manufacturing project." The site is an undeveloped 288-acre tract of the Texas A&M University System's 2,000-acre RELLIS Campus in Bryan, about eight miles from the main campus in College Station. The plan names a fab building of about 3 million square feet plus a central utility plant, offices, a machine shop and warehousing.

The Bryan City Council unanimously approved an 80% city tax abatement in July 2024, the same month filings first named Substrate and CEO James Proud, with job targets rising from 25 in the first year to 1,800 by the tenth. Local reports put the investment at a minimum of $10 billion, with about 800 construction jobs, about 2,000 permanent jobs once running, and more than $100 billion of economic impact over 40 years. Substrate has not announced a construction start at RELLIS.

Technology

Substrate Builds Its Own X-Ray Lithography Machines

Substrate came out of stealth in October 2025 with more than $100 million from Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Valor Equity Partners and In-Q-Tel, at a valuation above $1 billion. Its lithography system uses a compact particle accelerator as the light source in place of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) sources in ASML machines. Substrate says it has printed features that match 2nm-class logic and that it can cut the cost of a leading-edge wafer from about $100,000 to about $10,000 by the end of the decade. Those claims have not been independently verified at volume.

Substrate also said in October 2025 that it will build and run its own US fabs as a foundry, with first large-scale production targeted for 2028. Project Factory One is the fab named in its Texas filings.

ASML of the Netherlands is the only maker of EUV scanners, and US and Dutch export rules keep them out of China. China is funding domestic lithography through Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) to break that dependence; Substrate pitches its machine as a US route around the same single supplier.

Site and incentives

The RELLIS Deal Depends on Financing and State Incentives

Substrate's Comptroller application cites a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Texas A&M and lists competing offers from New York's Green CHIPS program and Oregon. The Comptroller recommended a 75% limitation on Bryan ISD maintenance and operations (M&O) taxable value, worth about $536 million, provided the agreement is executed within a year and the application does not change. The application requires 35 jobs, and Substrate committed to 35. Construction was listed to start in the fourth quarter of 2024, with completion in 2028 or 2029.

RELLIS also hosts the Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute, a $226 million research building paid for by the Texas CHIPS Act and university funds, which broke ground April 9, 2026, with completion targeted for early 2028. The Terafab Production Fab in neighboring Grimes County, with a $16.8 billion first phase, now competes for the same Brazos Valley construction trades and engineers.

Constraints

An Unproven Tool and No Disclosed Customers

• Technology: X-ray lithography from a compact accelerator has not run in high-volume production anywhere.
• Capital: $100 million raised so far against a fab of at least $10 billion; Substrate has said it will rely on strategic investment, debt and government support.
• Customers: Substrate has named no foundry customers; it has said early work targets US national labs and defense fabs.
• Schedule: the filed Q4 2024 construction start has passed with no public groundbreaking.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute at RELLIS
• Brazos Valley Semiconductor Concentration
• Terafab Grimes County
• AggieFab Nanofabrication Facility
• Center for Microdevices and Systems
• JETI Act