The European chip industry benefits from system know-how and cooperation with customers.
|
|
Chip manufacturing at Infineon: Innovations are emerging
increasingly together with the users of the chips.
Photo: obs / Infineon Technologies AG
|
To date, the annual
Industry Strategy Symposium
(ISS) of the semiconductors association Semi Europe was a forum where
the European
semiconductor
manufacturers discussed their mostly precarious position as a provider
of global chip business.
They also used it to advertise publicly supported catch-up strategies
against their powerful competitors in other world regions. Not so 2017: More than 20 chip developers and system users presented a
sober and a bit proudly a concentrated list of their own competences -
with the occasional indication that without their cooperation the
regular progress of the chip production according to the Moore law would
come to a halt in the Silicon Valley . This time there was no talk of high-flying initiatives to defend the
European production base.
It was simply about European technology innovations and the smart
networking of the process flows from the chip provider to the
user. And to meet the resulting requirements for cooperation and
cooperation between the chip suppliers and their industrial users
into the joint technology development.
This is in line with the current consolidation wave and the newly
introduced vertical integration of the semiconductor manufacturers
with their customers across traditional system
boundaries. At the ISS Europe there were therefore no industrial policy
announcements or demands regarding the well-established global
trade regulation as they were vigorously ventilated at the
corresponding US event in the California Half Moon Beach in early
January.Semi has been representing the interests of its more than 2000
member companies in all high-tech regions of the world market for
almost 50 years as a decidedly internationally oriented industrial
association with headquarters in Silicon Valley: semiconductor
manufacturers and their suppliers for manufacturing equipment and
process materials. "Semi represents the architects of the electronic revolution", it
sounds self-confident on the homepage.
The influence of Semi on the efficient and problem-free flow of
the global supply and value chains of micro- and nanoelectronics
is correspondingly important. To the outside, this is reflected in the numerous semi- organized
trade fairs, conferences, forums and symposia. They also discuss the sometimes incompatible economic policies of
the various trading regions and take care of their current
upheavals.
For Europe, SemiEurope is responsible, headquartered in Berlin
and two other offices in Grenoble, France and the
EU site
in Brussels. The main event is the annual exhibition and conference Semicon
Europa, which, after a long journey through the polycentric
continent, finally landed on the expansive grounds of Messe
München.Starting in 2017, it runs parallel to the trade fair giants
Electronica and Productronica, with its own hall.
"Munich is the center of electronics," says Laith Altimime,
President-in-Office of SemiEurope, since 2015, this strategically
motivated step. "We want to make it clear that we are an important part of the
global electronics platform." Finally, Europe has a lot to offer
in terms of micromechanics, sensors, actuators, power electronics,
research and standards for smart manufacturing with artificial
intelligence.
This idea of the international intertwining and systemic
networking of the production process also ran through the agenda
of the second-day Industry Strategy Symposium of SemiEurope 2017.
In addition to the well-known industry analyst Bill McClean of IC
Insights with his already in January in Half Moon Bay's assessment
of the global chip markets and the impetus from China - now also
proven European chip managers such as Helmut Gassel from Infineon
and David Reed from NXP.
According to Gassel, the chip industry continues to drive
industrial innovation. But the focus of chip development has changed: from the building
level to the system level.The immediate added value for the users is decisive for the
success: "We are innovating today with our customers." The
end-to-end, all-embracing "system of systems", such as the
Internet of Things (IoT).
For David Reed of NXP, this entails new demands for the safety
and quality of the products. IoT requires not only total availability, but also continuous
data protection. The same applies to the automotive electronics
industry. "IoT and Auto are the next growth engines for semiconductors."
For NXP, this is a "journey into the culture of total quality",
across the entire supply chain, with immediate response to
customer problems - things that have only recently been
implemented approximately.
Start-up for the research factory Micro electronics
Germany
To strengthen the position of the European semiconductor and
electronics industry in global competition, eleven institutes of
the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics, together with two
institutes of the Leibniz Association, have developed a concept
for a cross-site research factory for micro- and
nanoelectronics. The existing locations of the institutes are maintained, the
expansion and operation are coordinated and organized in a joint
office. The aim is to be able to offer the entire value chain for
micro- and
nanoelectronics from one source to customers from the large-scale industry,
small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the
universities. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supports
the necessary investments.
Article:
Link
0 comment: