During a visit to the first high-performance chip factory in Dresden, Saxony, Germany built by ESMC - a joint venture between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, China (TSMC), Bosch, Infineon and NXP , European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said: “This center is eligible to operate under the European Chips Act. This will be where products are manufactured that are not available at any other facility across the continent. We will soon announce financial support policies."
At the same time, she also revealed that the European Commission has approved a support worth 5 billion euros from the German government for ESMC to build and operate the factory.
The new factory will produce high-performance chips that use fin field-effect transistor ('FinFET') technology and incorporate a number of new features. The chips produced will have better performance as well as effectively reduce power consumption.
ESMC is expected to produce 480,000 chips by 2029. These chips are used for industrial and automotive products.
The factory was established to strengthen Europe's security of supply, resilience and autonomy in semiconductor technologies and in compliance with the European Chip Act. This law takes effect in September 2023, with the aim of realizing the goal of bringing the block's chip count to 10% of the total global chip total by 2030.
Previously, about 1 trillion chips were produced worldwide in 2020. Ms. Von der Leyen also said that to date, the Chips Act has helped attract about 115 billion euros of investment capital.
In the state of Saxony, Germany, there are currently about 25,000 semiconductor companies and factories, including Bosch, Infineon, Globalfoundries and X-FAB. The huge volume of chips produced allows the region to make technological advances in areas such as healthcare, cloud, defense and clean energy.
Ms Von der Leyen pledged to take further measures to boost Europe's industrial competitiveness, such as establishing a fund to invest in strategic technology industries, including the advanced chip sector in his new term.
At the same time, she will also propose a clean industry agreement to ensure access to cheap energy and raw materials. In addition, skills training in chip manufacturing or other high-tech industries is also of interest.
