Europe wants Intel and TSMC to help bring advanced chip-making back to the continent
- Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton said Europe was naive to outsource chip-making, with plans to boost 20-nanometre production and make 2-nm chips by 2030
- The European Commission hopes to double the continent’s 10 per cent market share in chip-making over the next decade, which has fallen from 44 per cent in 1990
Europe was naive to outsource so much of its semiconductor design and manufacturing in recent decades, a top government official said ahead of unveiling more details around plans to double the region’s chip production by 2030.
European Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton said it was possible to redress the imbalance, and the global chip shortage hobbling carmakers and electronics suppliers was evidence that now is the time to act.
“We want to come back to our former market share of production for the needs of our industry,” said Breton, the former chief executive officer of French IT giant Atos and France Telecom. Europe’s share of semiconductor manufacturing has dropped over the years because the region has been “too naive, too open,” he added in an interview.
On Wednesday, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, will announce more detail about a strategy announced in March to double production to at least 20 per cent of the world’s chips by 2030. It will involve creating an industry alliance of Europe’s leading semiconductor companies and research centers as well as more than a dozen EU governments, Breton said. At least 22 countries have already signed a letter of intent.
The alliance of European players will have to decide how to boost the design and production of 20-nanometre to 10-nm chips, which are smaller and more powerful than most currently manufactured in Europe, Breton said, without offering a timeline. Advances in manufacturing are measured in nanometres, or billionths of a metre, with smaller and smaller transistors crammed onto silicon wafers with each new iteration.