There is a wave of semiconductor factories in Europe

 According to Juheng.com, there has been a wave of setting up semiconductor factories in Europe. Intel, TSMC, and Samsung have successively announced that they will build wafer foundries in the local area. However, the agency Techcet warned that this will lead to a significant increase in the pressure on the local semiconductor material supply chain.

Intel announced this year that it will spend 88 billion US dollars to build factories in Europe, including two fabs in Germany (producing 2nm process chips), Italy will build a packaging factory, and the original Irish factory will also expand production; At the same time, TSMC also reported that it plans to set up a factory in Germany; Samsung also announced a plan to double its wafer production capacity and plans to build a factory in Europe, targeting the automotive chip market.

A large-scale new fab requires a strong chemical and material supply chain, but the current chemical supply chain in Europe is extremely unstable. The reasons behind this include: the conflict between Russia and Ukraine this year has caused energy problems; local chemical and gas suppliers have a low willingness to invest in equipment, resulting in insufficient supply; logistics conditions are also a hidden concern, and European environmental regulations are stricter and the supply chain follow-up speed is slower.

In the long run, while the fab is expanding, the raw material supply chain must invest simultaneously, otherwise, the fab will inevitably find more alternative sources for key raw materials. Techcet pointed out that in the future, hydrochloric acid, gas, sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, ammonia water, and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) used in European semiconductors will be high-risk groups for chain scission.

Techcet believes that fabs below 16nm will expand rapidly in the next 6 years. For related chemical suppliers, the establishment of new factories can manufacture semiconductor chemicals more quickly. Dan Tracy, senior director of Techcet, believes that if market conditions permit and financial subsidies such as joint investment are in place, European chemical suppliers are expected to consider investing in setting up factories, and the establishment of new factories will help meet the demand for advanced process chemicals.

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