Madrid
Updated:24/05/2022 16:25h
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Turn Spain into a power in the design and manufacture of semiconductors. This is the objective that the Government has set with the approval of the tenth —and most ambitious— Strategic Project for Recovery and Economic Transformation to date, called Perte Chip.
Total, they have planned to allocate 12,250 million euros until 2027 —Most of these will come from the addendum to the recovery plan that will be approved in the second half of 2022—, which will be articulated through subsidies and non-reimbursable transfers to companies that participate in four strategic axes.
The first of these is to develop Spanish scientific capacity, with the aim of promoting R&D and integrated photonics, as well as quantum chips.
In this chapter, which will have 1,165 million, the 500 million reserved by the Ministry of Industry for the IPCEI of microelectronics will be framed.
The second, with 1,330 million, will go to the design of microprocessors, test lines and a training network. The objective is to give rise to the birth of ‘fabless’ companies -without factories-
The third and most important involves the creation of production plants in Spain, known as ‘foundries’, capable of producing chips of less than 5 nanometers, placing them at the forefront of the industry. For other strategic industries, such as the automotive industry, it is also intended to manufacture larger components. This game will have the bulk of the funds: 9,350 million.
Finally, the fourth axis, with 400 million, aims to boost the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, with an incentive scheme for companies in this sector so that they can access projects of high interest in the EU ( IPCEI).
The first vice president, Nadia Calvin, highlighted that this initiative is part of the objectives of the European Union, which approved the European Chip Law in February with the intention of reaching a global market share of 20% of these components and thus reducing its dependence on other countries, such as Taiwan, USA, Korea or Japan. Currently, this indicator is around 10%.
For Calviño – who chaired the Council of Ministers because Pedro Sánchez is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) – the approval of this Perte is especially relevant for the Spanish automobile industry, which accumulates a drop of 15.4% in the first third of the year precisely because of the scarcity of these components.
“We have already had preliminary contacts with a positive result,” said Calviño, “In Davos, Pedro Sánchez is reaching out to semiconductor companies who are interested in the opportunities that exist in Spain and, now that the Perte has been launched, we intend to be present in all the European processes in which we can participate».
For the organization of this Perte, the creation of a new organism is foreseen, the Special Commission for the Special Project of Microelectronics and Semiconductorswhich will be directed by Jaime Martorell Suárez, a telecommunications engineer who ended up chairing Motorola Spain and ONO.
Some of the entities that will play a key role in the Perte Chip are the National Supercomputing Center of Barcelona, the integrated photonics and quantum computing departments of the polytechnic universities of Madrid and Valencia; the CSIC or the public-private consortium Quantum Spain.
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