How Europe’s unknown tech company Imec is shaping our future

lions “Europe has two pearls,” said Intel boss Pat Gelsinger once. One is ASML, chip machine builders from the Netherlands and the most valuable tech group on the continent. And the other one? “Imec, the most advanced semiconductor research in the world,” says the manager.

While ASML should be familiar to many, imec is mostly only known to experts. The Belgian institute plays a central role in the semiconductor industry.

The fact that there is now room for billions of transistors on a chip, that consumers around the world can watch videos on cell phones without interruption and do not have to charge their devices once throughout the day is all thanks to the engineers at IMEC.