St. George space-qualified germanium substrate capacity expansion

Provider organizations

U.S. Department of Defense

Recipient

5N+ Semiconductors5N Plus Semiconductors LLC

Legal authority as stated

Defense Production Act Investment Program

1. Exact status date not stated · Decided

   DoD announced the award on 16 April 2024. The release does not date the award decision, and the agreement's signing date (11 April 2024, below) precedes the announcement, so the announcement date is not used as the decision date.

   U.S. Department of Defense↗

2. 11 Apr 2024 · Contracted

   USAspending records cooperative agreement FA86502425501 to 5N PLUS SEMICONDUCTORS LLC as a new award signed 11 April 2024, described as DPA Title III sustainment and enhancement of the space-qualified solar cell supply chain (the subject of DoD's release). That federal award record establishes an executed agreement; the agreement text was not inspected. A later modification dated 20 May 2025 is described as definitizing the agreement. Binding describes the agreement, not paid money. Amounts, kept distinct: the federal obligation reported in the record is $12,458,128 (award plus modifications through 26 March 2026) and its non-federal funding is $2,505,981; neither equals the $14.4M announced figure, which is kept as stated, and how the announced figure relates to them is not reconciled.

   USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), reporting Department of Defense award data↗

3. Exact status date not stated · Partially disbursed

   Federal-reporting attribution only: neither DoD nor 5N+ states a payment, receivable or payment date. USAspending's File C (account-by-award) data, reported by DoD on federal account 097-0360 and linked to this award by its FAIN, carry three gross-outlay lines, each a fiscal-year-beginning-to-period-end figure: $998,701.28 (FY2024 period 9, ending June 2024), $1,032,342.24 (FY2025 period 9, ending June 2025) and $399,308.73 (FY2026 period 6, ending March 2026). By the official definition (OMB Circular A-11, quoted in USAspending's data dictionary) an outlay is a payment made to liquidate an obligation, so some money is reported paid out against this agreement. A reporting period is not a payment date, so the date is left null. The lines name no payee, each is only a floor for its fiscal year at that period end, and they are not totalled, so no amount paid is recorded. The award summary's $0 account outlay does not contradict them: USAspending counts toward that field only each fiscal year's latest closed DoD submission, and the same $0 appears on other awards on this account that carry interim outlay lines. Year-end data differ by year: for FY2024 the period-12 submission is available and holds account rows for other awards but no outlay line for this award; for FY2025 the period-12 submission is available but the File C data retrieved hold no rows for the account in it; for FY2026 no year-end submission existed at retrieval on 4 October 2026 (the latest DoD submission was period 11), so that year's position is open. The public data do not show whether the award was omitted or reported as zero, and omission is the usual pattern (10 of 13 FY2024 assistance awards with a period-9 outlay line have none at period 12). This is the corpus's first partial disbursement resting on federal-reporting data and not on a government or recipient statement. The entry is undated and reflects evidence reviewed on 4 October 2026; it does not establish that any disbursement had occurred at an earlier date, although derivations that read the latest entry show it at every as-of date. The reading is left to human review.

   USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), reporting Department of Defense award data↗

Amounts, kept distinct and not reconciled: the announced $14.4M (DoD and 5N+, April 2024); the federal obligation reported for the award, $12,458,128; and the non-federal funding recorded for it, $2,505,981 (USAspending lists $14,964,109 as total funding, the sum of those two). None of these is confirmed as the amount executed or paid, and no source read explains how the announced figure relates to the reported federal obligation. That relationship is the unresolved question; the federal record does report an obligation. The award supports both substrate-manufacturing capability and germanium sourcing/recovery/refining; the $14.4M is not allocated between those stages. Reviewed 4 October 2026: execution of a cooperative agreement is established by the federal award record (USAspending); the agreement text was not inspected. Some payment is reported in federal-reporting data only (USAspending File C outlay lines; see the partially_disbursed status note): neither DoD nor 5N+ states a payment, receivable or payment date (releases and filings through 3 August 2026), and no date of payment or amount paid is recorded. The physical stage supported for the funded scope is announced only, which records the stated plan and not construction. 5N+'s 22 September 2026 release about a roughly 50% St. George facility expansion says it is funded from existing capex plans and customer support and does not attribute it to this award.