Europe and the chip triangle to attract the billions of Intel- time.news

by time news

A new meeting is expected shortly between various members of the government and Pat Gelsinger, the man who has led the Californian giant Intel since February with the aim of competing with Taiwan for technological leadership in microchips. The consultations have only one point on the agenda: Intel’s plans to launch an initial investment of 20 billion dollars – but about one hundred billion dollars by 2030 – to build microchips of the most technologically advanced generation in Europe. On the industrial level, it would be the most powerful Western response to the dramatic shortage of microchips that emerged this year – even for Italian companies – despite an increase in world production of almost 10% to over 520 billion dollars in turnover.

On the technological level, an opportunity for Europe to return to the technological frontier in a sector in which it has lost ground: investments in new factories on the continent in 2020 are just 3% of the world total (according to the Bruegel study center) and, from the German Infineon to the Italian-French STMicroelectronics, the European groups preside over important niches but far from the most advanced models. On the political ground, it would be a precise signal: a strategic agreement with Intel, in turn supported by the White House, would strengthen a transatlantic relationship that is now cracked and would move the search for “strategic autonomy” that Europe affirms to other fronts with realism. to chase. If it really can take off after the German elections, it is a tripartite plan. The governments of France, Germany and Italy have been holding confidential weekly meetings for some time to define a common proposal on how the Gelsinger project can unfold, simultaneously, in the three countries.


Intel expects the states involved and perhaps part of the EU budget itself to contribute around 30% of the costs to the investment. We are strengthened by the voice of Italy, Germany and France in indicating a distribution of the effort, which would go beyond the declared project of a single factory to be built in Europe. From what has emerged so far in the consultations between Berlin, Paris and Rome, a first agreement could take shape on the basis of a balance acceptable to all. The European foundry of Intel, the real factory for the production of transistors of the next generations, would go to Germany and would probably be located in the Dresden area. There is already the largest European district in the semiconductor industry: it is produced by Infineon and the American GlobalFoundries, the latter controlled by the Saudi sovereign fund and potentially targeted by Intel itself. In Catania, on the other hand, close to the technological district of StMicroelectronics, an investment of several billion euros could arrive (yet to be quantified). By way of comparison, the entire Italian Recovery plan provides for just 750 million euros for chips in the country, also in Catania.

The so-called “back end” and the packaging of the Intel supply chain should go to the Sicilian district. The back end is the process of inspecting, checking, testing and finally laser cutting the semiconductor sheets (or wafers) into single chips ready for application. France would then go to the research and development area of โ€‹โ€‹transistors and the architecture of new semiconductors. The plan exposed by Intel to European governments has precise outlines. The Californian group claims that it also intends to produce in Europe the smallest and most advanced transistors, those of two or three nanometers (millionths of millimeters) that are needed today for the cloud or artificial intelligence, but in the future they will be absorbed by electric cars or autonomous and from the whole 4.0 industry based on the Internet of Things. In ten years the industries of Germany, Italy and France will have a very intense consumption of these chip models. Of course the game is still open. Part of the German industry remains reluctant to too radical innovations and hesitates. also slowed by the advances of Tsmc: the Taiwanese company, number one in the world, has offered a joint-venture to StMicroelectronics (declined) and Infineon. That still hesitates.

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