European Institutions have reached provisional agreement on the European Chips Act,
to pave the way for the region’s introduction of a framework to expand innovation in the European semiconductor ecosystem and gain security of supply for Europe’s industries.
The European Chips Act shall strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and resilience in semiconductor technologies and applications, and accommodate both the digital and the green
transitions by reinforcing Europe’s technological leadership in the field. With the digital transformation, new markets for the chip industry are emerging such as highly automated cars, cloud, Internet of Things, connectivity, space,
defense and super-computers.
One estimates that >1 trillion microchips/year are now produced globally, and that EU’s share of this market is 10%.
Recent global semiconductor shortages forced factory closures in a range of sectors and made more evident the
extreme global dependency of the semiconductor value chain on a very limited number of actors in a complex
geopolitical context.
A recent survey by the European Commission, showed that industry expects demand for chips to double by 2030. Meeting this increasing demand is challenging, especially in light of the current supply crisis.
The Commission’s vision is to jointly create a state-of-the-art European chip ecosystem, which shall include fabrication connected with European research, design and testing capacities.
The Act shall mobilize more than EUR 43 billion of public and private investments and set measures to prepare,
anticipate and swiftly respond to any future supply chain disruptions, together with EU Member States and
international partners.
In meetings with European Government officials, industry leaders call for imminent adoption of the Chips Act and its inclusion of wafer-packaging in the scope and the next steps needed to enable European leadership segments with-in integrated circuits fabrication and semiconductor assembly & testing.
Construction of the first chips giga-factories in Europe is in process, as can be seen here.
The full announcement of the European Commission is available at this site.
(Article is based on the info published by European Union and edited by T.Sollie)