Germany’s Infineon opens major chip plant as EU seeks tech autonomy

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20260702-germany-s-infineon-opens-major-chip-plant-as-eu-seeks-tech-autonomy

213 95 21 days ago

usrnm• 20 days ago

The plant will produce chips for intelligent power management
The company ... sought to capitalise on the massive AI investment boom

These chips are probably very useful and important, but I don't see what they have to do with AI. Does everything need to have the word AI these days?

wolfi1• 20 days ago

there was a buzzword bingo and their application reached Bingo! first.

alephnerd8• 20 days ago

don't see what they have to do with AI

Not directly. This fab is meant to primarily fabricate compound semiconductors which is Infineon's niche and is a major bottleneck for European industry today.

Does everything need to have the word AI these days

Because Infineon's press release [0] for their compound semiconductor fab called out "AI".

Additonally, the "semiconductor" and "hardware" segment has now been rebranded has "AI" in a number of funds. By calling out something that's even tenuously tied to "AI", it allows funds that are contractually tied to investing in "AI" to purchase Infineon stock.

Investor relations is important as well.

[0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/infineon-opens-the-...

_fizz_buzz_2• 20 days ago

Infineon is betting big on the 800V dc power distribution that seems to become the new standard for AI data centers which is directly relevant for the chips that are made in this fab.

tencentshill• 20 days ago

Hopefully they can use that tech to expand the EV fast charger network once the AI bubble pops.

171862744013• 20 days ago

I think this fab was already in construction before the AI hype, this is just marketing.

alephnerd8• 20 days ago

As I mentioned about this before [0], this is a compound semiconductor fab - a very critical bottleneck for European industry and a much more worrisome NatSec issue than sub-14nm logical chip fabrication or arguably even AI.

This is not directly related to AI or logical compute, so kvetching about GPUs, SoCs, TSMC, AI, and other buzzwords is dumb.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557914

blitzar5• 20 days ago

I would also like to see local PCB manufacturers - pcbway etc like. Modern production facilities might even be locally competitive given the amount of automation that can be had.

alephnerd8• 20 days ago

They should, but sadly it's extremely difficult for PCB board manufacturing to return to Europe.

EU has FTAs with Japan and SK, and others that dominate the segment like Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India have already unlocked public-private subsidized for the sector.

Additionally, the big players in the industry like ZDT, Unimicron, Nippon Mekatron, Foxconn, Compeq, TTM, and Flex have much stronger financial and political linkages in Asia or the Americas.

This fab itself is important, but was extremely difficult to stand-up and was largely a result of the supply chain issues that the automotive industry faced during zero covid, so it basically took 6 years to execute on this project. That lag-time is the biggest issue unless individual European states decide to take industrial policy their own hands, which becomes expensive very quickly.

Concentrating on building a niche in compound semiconductors as well as 2.5/3D packaging would probably be the best bet for the EU today, but I expect to see French-German industrial rivalry to undermine coordination.

plextoria• 20 days ago

Does AISLER[1] do the same thing as pcbway? They seem to be based in Germany/EU

[1] https://aisler.net/en

petcat2• 20 days ago

My understanding is that these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses?

alephnerd8• 20 days ago

these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses

I don't like this framing.

These aren't logic ICs but that doesn't mean they are useless or "easy".

Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.

In fact, compound semiconductors and power electronics is one segment where Europe's China dependency is extremely high, as they have significant uses from automotive to PLCs to weapons systems, and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].

These are dual use technologies and a major reason why both the US and China heavily invested in compound semiconductor capacity in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

Edit: can't reply

In 2024 Belgium closed its only semi fab, which had recently pivoted to GaN

THEMA Foundries is working in photonics, not GaNs [2]. The GaN initiative (BelGaN) failed and the only two buyers interested in buying out the property for GaN fabrication were a Chinese and Indian player [2].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...

[1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3351292/...

[2] https://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2025/apr/belg...

chicken-stew• 20 days ago

In 2024 Belgium closed its only semi fab, which had recently pivoted to GaN.

joe_mamba12• 20 days ago

Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.

So basically all major industrial powers? In which case I don't get the use of the world "only" here, as if the EU, the richest block in the world, deserve praise for doing something countries a lot less wealthier are doing.

and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].

The way it's framed it sounds like China is some evil bad guy for doing that but that's standard practice that the EU and US also do. The EU also restricts ASML EUV machines to China and sanctions Chinese tech in their defense sector. Standard stuff.

imtringued• 20 days ago

Germany doesn't design high end SoCs or x86 processors so why would they build a fab for them?

alephnerd8• 20 days ago

Bad take.

Design capacity doesn't imply fabrication capacity, as can be seen with Israel and India's comparative dominance in the chip design industry.

Design capacity (basically programming and logic design) is orthogonal to front-end fabrication (basically material science and chemical engineering) which is orthogonal to back-end/OSAT (basically materials science and metrology).

Only the US and Taiwan have domestic E2E capacity in all 3.

petra• 20 days ago

Designing a secure platform is possible within the EU[1].

[1]They need to use US EDA tools, And manufacture masks but maybe there are tricks they won't need to trust them - like inspecting critical parts of the masks.

IshKebab• 20 days ago

It's not just high end CPUs that use the latest processes. Power, Performance and Area is important to all chips, including microcontrollers, FPGA, etc.

mqus• 20 days ago

they may low-density, but low-tech?

blitzar5• 20 days ago

Also suitable for keeping an economy functioning and weaponry in war.

You might not be able to fabricate billion terraflop GPUs but at least the basics of survival will be able to be locally produced without scavenging washing machines for parts.

joe_mamba12• 20 days ago

Also suitable for keeping an economy functioning

The (western) economy runs on sub 7nm phone, laptop and datacenter chips on which the white collar workforce produces value. Those are the ones that are also the most profitable since they have the highest margins. Europe doesn't have that.

seabird3• 20 days ago

“Only for industrial uses” is kind of a crazy thing to say when you say it out loud, don’t you think? You might as well say “only for having real-world impact”.

joe_mamba12• 20 days ago

And 3nm CPUs, GPUs, phone SoCs don't have "real world impact"?

One could say they have an even bigger real world impact.

onel• 20 days ago

Still pretty useful to build in EU

TheChaplain• 20 days ago

Funny that the article didn't mention it.

Infineon got €1bn of tax payer money to open the plant (~$1.1bn).

advisedwang• 20 days ago

The article says:

The facility was backed by the EU's Chips Act with one billion euros in subsidies

171862744013• 20 days ago

There are worse ways to spend tax payers money.

484849492• 20 days ago

Let's see the state of this project in 5 years. Experience tends to show European projects dragging forever and then suddenly closing whilst funds mysteriously move into semi public companies with boards full to the brim with retired political figures

Squarex2• 20 days ago

Yeah, most europeans are not aware how much do we spend on agriculture, pensions and healthcare.

Tade03• 20 days ago

EDIT: Apparently it's a different plant.

It's not just Infineon - it's called the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC) and is a joint venture by TSMC, Bosch, Infineon, and NXP, with TSMC being the majority (70%) shareholder.

I've met one of the engineers designing the piping for that plant. Hardest project to date for him and mainly because TSMC was setting the pace.

jansan• 20 days ago

Isn't that TSMC joint venture another plant that will open next year?

171862744013• 20 days ago

These are different plants, that are situated in the same quarter.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1191197175 vs. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/583767292

Tade03• 20 days ago

You're right, honest mistake. I checked this several times, thinking "surely there aren't two chip plants built at the same time, in roughly the same location with the same company involved?".

Apparently there are.

jijijijij11• 20 days ago

I wonder how these will fare in Saxony. I presume it's an industry which will attract and depend on highly qualified foreign workers. Dresden itself may be fine, but parts of Saxony are sadly no-go areas for anyone remotely non-white, or even moderately liberal. It's a really brain-damaged region outside of Dresden and Leipzig, and even those cities are not exactly welcoming examples of diversity. Given a historic chance of prosperity, I think odds are eastern Germany will shoot itself in the foot epically with this.

raverbashing• 20 days ago

Hardest project to date for him and mainly because TSMC was setting the pace.

I can imagine their pace might be accelerated but better than endless discussions, shuffling and never shipping

hyperionultra• 20 days ago

Infinity neon! A nice company name.

jijijijij11• 20 days ago

If I was Queen of Germany, I would put everything into a platform like Arduino or RaspPi which can be widely used across industries and education. Some amount of taxes will be allocated to buy these boards and guarantee demand for manufacturing. Then every citizen gets such a device in return. Basically mandatory purchase. The education sector can completely lean in on the platform, abundance will have it dominate DIY projects and may create additional demand as reference platform. Whoever doesn't need it, can sell it or give it away to charity. This will stabilize a critical industry and aid digital education, engineering and so on. I feel like people would be more easy about a tax, if they get a physical product in exchange.

Over time this program would be extended to include and bring back other critical industries and manufacturing capabilities, ultimately leading to citizens being able to choose their mandatory product to some extent and preference. For example it would be really cool to have a basic, but very robust and repairable sewing machine, 3D printer, ... which all aid survivability/adaptability of the collective in crisis, if widely distributed. These products would also set the baseline for quality and accessibility expectations.

Of course this goes hand in hand with a 4 day work week, so people can actually learn to appreciate their mandated crisis hobbies and indulge their family and friends doing so. And if all of this doesn't pan out economically, I would simply plunder and enslave a neighboring country <3

171862744013• 20 days ago

Good, that you are not. An overpriced variant, running on marketing, of a cheap non-customizable product, riddled with design errors in the hardware and non-existent to actually broken software, without any liability and support, basically only suitable for consumers with too much time and interest, being mandatory for the industry is surely going to help.

jijijijij11• 20 days ago

Husch, husch, zum Schafott mit ihm!

Germany’s Infineon opens major chip plant as EU seeks tech autonomy

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