Semiconductors – Scarce but Sexy

摘要

If the TV evening news report on chip shortage and unfinished cars piling up and the EU announces a “Chip act”, the situation must be severe. And it is. Differences to past semiconductor cycles are the mounting geopolitics between USA and China, the strong concentration of market power by chip producers and their big customers, the increasing complexity of flagship products (processors) and the crazy cost of a state-of-the-art wafer fab (20 billion US-dollars). They show the dilemma Europe is facing. Leading semiconductor companies are either American or Korean – and if including the leading foundry TSMC, also Taiwanese. Their focus lies on top-class processors and memories for which giant investments in smallest structures and expensive processes are justified. To date, only Samsung and TSMC can mass-produce devices with 7 nm or smaller, others, in case they can design devices of that complex nature, buy their manufacturing service. Most semiconductor companies – among them Europeans – don’t play in that league. They have devices that need less complex processes.