Attracting the semi-conductor giants to the Old Continent is definitely a very difficult challenge for the leaders of the European Union. New illustration with the heavyweight in the sector, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which has chosen to postpone its plans to set up in Europe until 2025 at the earliest, according to information from the Taiwanese media. UDN.
TSMC executives felt that the conditions were not right for such a project due to a return to normal in demand for electronic components in the automotive industry. In addition, inflation is driving up manufacturing costs, which no doubt dampened the company’s European ambitions. Discussions had however been initiated with Germany to build a mega-factory there, but they did not prove fruitful. However, TSMC leaves the door open to the subsequent establishment of manufacturing units in the territory of the EU, while it seemed to be double-locked a few months ago.
Intel delays the construction of its mega-factory in Germany
In 2022, the German government decided to allocate an envelope of 14 billion euros to attract electronic chip giants, such as TSMC and Intel. And if the American founder had indeed set his sights on our neighbor to build his European mega-factory there, he finally decided to delay the start of the construction site because of the soaring prices of energy and raw materials, tensions geopolitics or even the fall in demand on the semiconductor market.
In this context, Intel is no longer counting on a budget of 17 billion euros to erect its German factory, but on construction costs that would be around 20 billion euros. If the project is not called into question, the company is awaiting a gesture from the German government to help it overcome the economic difficulties accumulated over the past few months.
In addition to the government across the Rhine, Brussels plans to allocate public subsidies of several billion euros to electronic chip giants wishing to set up production sites on EU territory. The move is part of Europe’s Chips Act, a €42 billion plan to increase the EU’s share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030, from less than 10 % at present. This does not seem enough for TSMC which prefers to favor the United States and Japan.