Also suitable for keeping an economy functioning and weaponry in war.
You might not be able to fabricate billion terraflop GPUs but at least the basics of survival will be able to be locally produced without scavenging washing machines for parts.
> these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses
I don't like this framing.
These aren't logic ICs but that doesn't mean they are useless or "easy".
Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.
In fact, compound semiconductors and power electronics is one segment where Europe's China dependency is extremely high, as they have significant uses from automotive to PLCs to weapons systems, and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].
These are dual use technologies and a major reason why both the US and China heavily invested in compound semiconductor capacity in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Designing a secure platform is possible within the EU[1].
[1]They need to use US EDA tools, And manufacture masks but maybe there are tricks they won't need to trust them - like inspecting critical parts of the masks.
Design capacity doesn't imply fabrication capacity, as can be seen with Israel and India's comparative dominance in the chip design industry.
Design capacity (basically programming and logic design) is orthogonal to front-end fabrication (basically material science and chemical engineering) which is orthogonal to back-end/OSAT (basically materials science and metrology).
Only the US and Taiwan have domestic E2E capacity in all 3.
Infineon is betting big on the 800V dc power distribution that seems to become the new standard for AI data centers which is directly relevant for the chips that are made in this fab.
Not directly. This fab is meant to primarily fabricate compound semiconductors which is Infineon's niche and is a major bottleneck for European industry today.
> Does everything need to have the word AI these days
Because Infineon's press release [0] for their compound semiconductor fab called out "AI".
Additonally, the "semiconductor" and "hardware" segment has now been rebranded has "AI" in a number of funds. By calling out something that's even tenuously tied to "AI", it allows funds that are contractually tied to investing in "AI" to purchase Infineon stock.
As I mentioned about this before [0], this is a compound semiconductor fab - a very critical bottleneck for European industry and a much more worrisome NatSec issue than sub-14nm logical chip fabrication or arguably even AI.
This is not directly related to AI or logical compute, so kvetching about GPUs, SoCs, TSMC, AI, and other buzzwords is dumb.
I would also like to see local PCB manufacturers - pcbway etc like. Modern production facilities might even be locally competitive given the amount of automation that can be had.
They should, but sadly it's extremely difficult for PCB manufacturing to return to Europe.
EU has FTAs with Japan and SK, and others that dominate the segment like Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India have already unlocked public-private subsidized for the sector.
Additionally, the big players in the industry like ZDT, Unimicron, Nippon Mekatron, Foxconn, Compeq, TTM, and Flex have much stronger financial and political linkages in Asia or the Americas.
This fab itself is important, but was extremely difficult to stand-up and was largely a result of the supply chain issues that the automotive industry faced during zero covid, so it basically took 6 years to execute on this project. That lag-time is the biggest issue unless individual European states decide to take industrial policy their own hands, which becomes expensive very quickly.
Concentrating on building a niche in compound semiconductors as well as 2.5/3D packaging would probably be the best bet for the EU today, but I expect to see French-German industrial rivalry to undermine coordination.
Funny that the article didn't mention it.
Infineon got €1bn of tax payer money to open the plant (~$1.1bn).
My understanding is that these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses?
Also suitable for keeping an economy functioning and weaponry in war.
You might not be able to fabricate billion terraflop GPUs but at least the basics of survival will be able to be locally produced without scavenging washing machines for parts.
> these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses
I don't like this framing.
These aren't logic ICs but that doesn't mean they are useless or "easy".
Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.
In fact, compound semiconductors and power electronics is one segment where Europe's China dependency is extremely high, as they have significant uses from automotive to PLCs to weapons systems, and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].
These are dual use technologies and a major reason why both the US and China heavily invested in compound semiconductor capacity in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...
[1] - https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3351292/...
In 2024 Belgium closed its only semi fab, which had recently pivoted to GaN.
they may low-density, but low-tech?
Germany doesn't design high end SoCs or x86 processors so why would they build a fab for them?
Designing a secure platform is possible within the EU[1].
[1]They need to use US EDA tools, And manufacture masks but maybe there are tricks they won't need to trust them - like inspecting critical parts of the masks.
Bad take.
Design capacity doesn't imply fabrication capacity, as can be seen with Israel and India's comparative dominance in the chip design industry.
Design capacity (basically programming and logic design) is orthogonal to front-end fabrication (basically material science and chemical engineering) which is orthogonal to back-end/OSAT (basically materials science and metrology).
Only the US and Taiwan have domestic E2E capacity in all 3.
> The plant will produce chips for intelligent power management
> The company ... sought to capitalise on the massive AI investment boom
These chips are probably very useful and important, but I don't see what they have to do with AI. Does everything need to have the word AI these days?
Infineon is betting big on the 800V dc power distribution that seems to become the new standard for AI data centers which is directly relevant for the chips that are made in this fab.
> don't see what they have to do with AI
Not directly. This fab is meant to primarily fabricate compound semiconductors which is Infineon's niche and is a major bottleneck for European industry today.
> Does everything need to have the word AI these days
Because Infineon's press release [0] for their compound semiconductor fab called out "AI".
Additonally, the "semiconductor" and "hardware" segment has now been rebranded has "AI" in a number of funds. By calling out something that's even tenuously tied to "AI", it allows funds that are contractually tied to investing in "AI" to purchase Infineon stock.
Investor relations is important as well.
[0] - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infineon-opens-the-...
there was a buzzword bingo and their application reached Bingo! first.
As I mentioned about this before [0], this is a compound semiconductor fab - a very critical bottleneck for European industry and a much more worrisome NatSec issue than sub-14nm logical chip fabrication or arguably even AI.
This is not directly related to AI or logical compute, so kvetching about GPUs, SoCs, TSMC, AI, and other buzzwords is dumb.
[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557914
I would also like to see local PCB manufacturers - pcbway etc like. Modern production facilities might even be locally competitive given the amount of automation that can be had.
Does AISLER[1] do the same thing as pcbway? They seem to be based in Germany/EU
[1] https://aisler.net/en
They should, but sadly it's extremely difficult for PCB manufacturing to return to Europe.
EU has FTAs with Japan and SK, and others that dominate the segment like Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India have already unlocked public-private subsidized for the sector.
Additionally, the big players in the industry like ZDT, Unimicron, Nippon Mekatron, Foxconn, Compeq, TTM, and Flex have much stronger financial and political linkages in Asia or the Americas.
This fab itself is important, but was extremely difficult to stand-up and was largely a result of the supply chain issues that the automotive industry faced during zero covid, so it basically took 6 years to execute on this project. That lag-time is the biggest issue unless individual European states decide to take industrial policy their own hands, which becomes expensive very quickly.
Concentrating on building a niche in compound semiconductors as well as 2.5/3D packaging would probably be the best bet for the EU today, but I expect to see French-German industrial rivalry to undermine coordination.