The Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) is soliciting proposals for manufacturing projects in sensor and microelectromechanical systems, compound semiconductors and advanced packaging. The federal government is also providing the National Research Council with $90 million to upgrade the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre. (The Logic)

Talking point: Industry executives and VCs have called for Ottawa to offer financial incentives for domestic manufacturing and to support local chip startups’ growth. Fabrication plants can cost as much as US$20 billion, and other countries have promised subsidies of similar scale to attract them. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne acknowledged that the sums pledged Monday are significantly smaller, but said the government hoped to “position Canada as a critical global supplier of niche semiconductor technologies.” He also cited discussions with unnamed major chip manufacturers for foreign direct investments. The federal government has previously backed VentureLab, which runs a Markham, Ont.-based development for hardware startups, while the SIF has provided funding to Ottawa photonics scale-up Ranovus.