The European Chip Law is combined in Spain with a PERTE of 11,000 million that aims to attract chip manufacturers to our country. However, they prefer to reach agreements with other countries of the Old Continent.
The microchip crisis made Europe see that Asia’s excessive dependence on this sector seriously jeopardized the competitiveness, even survival, of its technology sector and other associates such as the automotive industry.
With the aim of changing that, or at least minimizing it, the Chip Actthe call chip law which included 43,000 million euros with which to boost Europe in this sector. Not in vain, currently Europe does not even reach 10% of production in a market in which China keeps 80%. The objective? Get at least 20% in 2030.
Spain has more than 100 companies dedicated to microchip R&D, but lacks manufacturing and assembly infrastructure
Two months later, Spain announced the creation of a PERTE (Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation) aimed at strengthening our country in the chip and semiconductor sector.
“Semiconductors are a basic element of all sectors,” said Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government, at the time, who stated that Spain was not going to “lose the race to the most advanced technology”.
The plan doesn’t work
As if it were Fernando Alonso’s Plan in Alpine, the one devised by the Government to strengthen its presence in the competitive chip sector, at the moment, does not work.
Regardless of whether a investment of 11,000 million in a sector like this it is clearly insufficient (only TSMC, the largest manufacturer -Taiwanese- is going to invest 100,000 million until 2024), the problem is that no manufacturer trusts Spain.
Our country has more than 100 companies dedicated to R&D (research and development) of microchipsbut with regard to their manufacture and assembly, the situation is quite different because the plants required for this are expensive and sophisticated.
As a consequence of that, TSMC has rejected the Spanish proposal to settle in our country, most likely choosing Germany instead, a country that already has a solid infrastructure in the Saxony region.
Intel has also chosen Germany to invest 17 billion euros in Magdeburg. For their part, Global Foundries and STMicroelectronics have already announced an investment of 5.7 billion euros in France.
Bearing in mind that Spain has the second largest automotive sector in Europe, accounting for 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP), is not good news for an industry that has already been suffering a lot in recent years. We will have to see what solutions the Government proposes in the coming weeks.
Font: Automotive News Europe
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