Munich No chips far and wide: semiconductors are in short supply. Nothing will change in the short term. In the long term, however, the customers themselves can help ensure that they are supplied more reliably. “The local customer industries have to show more commitment to their orders if they want to have chip production here,” said Gunther Kegel, President of the ZVEI industry association, the Handelsblatt.
The chip factories around the world have been working to capacity for months. Those who order today wait an average of five and a half months for their chips. As a result, car factories across Europe are repeatedly shut down, and many other industries on the continent are also suffering from the shortage. As a rule, there is a lack of supplies from the plants in the Far East.
This dependency on Asia will only change once customers commit to shopping in Europe, emphasized Kegel. Only then did the billion-dollar investments pay off for chip manufacturers in the region. The ZVEI is the mouthpiece of the semiconductor industry in this country. Its members include large chip companies such as Infineon, NXP and Bosch.
In the past 20 years, most of the chip factories have been set up in Asia. On the one hand, this was due to lavish public funding. On the other hand, the manufacturers followed their customers, explained Kegel. “Because we lost most of the PCs and entertainment electronics in Europe for a long time.”
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Computer manufacturers and smartphone manufacturers are the biggest buyers of semiconductors today – and they are mainly located in China and Vietnam.
Europe’s hunger for chips is growing
However, chips are now becoming more and more important for the industries that have remained in Europe. This is why there is also increasing interest in a reliable supply of components on one’s own doorstep. A car today contains an average of $ 750 in semiconductors, and in four years it should be more than $ 1,000. The EU Commission has therefore set itself the goal of increasing Europe’s share of chip production from less than ten to 20 percent.
The first signs are that chip customers are ready to sign long-term contracts with manufacturers. For example, BMW has promised to purchase several million chips from the Munich-based supplier Inova every year, which are produced by the contract manufacturer Globalfoundries. The US group Globalfoundries operates large plants in Dresden.
This year, the automotive supplier opened the first new chip factory in Germany in 15 years in Dresden.
(Photo: dpa)
The car manufacturer Renault will in future obtain its power semiconductors directly from the chip group ST Microelectronics. The Geneva-based company has numerous plants in France and Italy. “This partnership secures us the future supply of important components,” said Renault boss Luca de Meo when he announced the deal.
ST Microelectronics can invest more in view of the purchase guarantee. The company will “benefit from the considerable annual numbers that are guaranteed for the power modules and transistors from 2026 to 2030,” says ST.
ZVEI functionary Kegel also sees the EU and the individual states as having an obligation to put together attractive packages for chip manufacturers so that they can settle in Europe. Because nobody in Europe builds without subsidies. After all, semiconductor factories in Asia are subsidized with up to 40 percent. Kegel: “Organizing majorities takes time and energy. We will therefore never be faster than the others in Europe. We only have to do better. “
In recent times, the large chip companies have opted for locations overseas. With the exception of Bosch, no company has built a new chip factory in Germany in the past 15 years. The contract manufacturer Globalfoundries recently announced investments in the USA and Singapore. The US group currently operates two plants in Dresden and could also have expanded in Saxony.
In November, Samsung, the number two in the industry, announced a new plant for $ 17 billion in the United States. Shortly before, Texas Instruments had announced that it would invest up to $ 30 billion in new factories in its home country.
The ZVEI lacks a welcoming culture in this country
This shows that it is not because of the costs, especially in the city-state of Singapore they are not lower than in Europe. But that’s where the red carpet is being rolled out for the chip industry, says Kegel: “They have a welcoming culture that we need.”
Kegel knows the semiconductor industry inside out. The manager leads the Mannheim-based sensor manufacturer Pepperl und Fuchs.
The world’s largest contract manufacturer, TSMC, is at least thinking about a factory in Germany and is talking about it with the federal government. The management is already negotiating with several customers, said board chairman Mark Liu.
Germany’s largest chip manufacturer is hoping for firm orders from customers.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
In addition to TSMC, industry leader Intel is reviewing investments in Europe. The new Intel boss Pat Gelsinger announced in the spring that he wanted to build several factories in the EU. The manager wanted to make a final decision on this by the end of the year. In Europe, however, Gelsinger is still wrestling with governments and potential customers over the terms of the investment.
In America, on the other hand, construction work is already underway for new Intel factories worth billions. Even with Malaysia, the manager quickly came to an agreement: Intel announced in the middle of the month that the engineer wants to build a chip packaging factory in Penang for seven billion dollars.
At Germany’s largest chip manufacturer Infineon, they are convinced that purchase guarantees pay off for manufacturers and customers. In this way, providers could invest with foresight and thus provide the right quantities. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be more expensive for our customers if they commit to delivery quantities in the long term. After all, it also costs a lot of money to transport control units on the plane in order to save production at the last minute, ”said Peter Schiefer, head of the Autodivision, recently to the Handelsblatt.
The customers of the chip industry should become more involved out of self-interest. Because the delivery bottlenecks will not go away by themselves. ZVEI President Kegel: “A certain degree of relaxation can be expected over the next few months. But the situation will not normalize entirely in 2022. “
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