Perhaps the events of the outgoing week somehow stirred up the aspirations of European countries to achieve technological sovereignty, because a ceremony was recently held in Arizona with the participation of the President of the United States, TSMC management and representatives of the largest customers of this company, timed to coincide with the start of equipment installation at the plant built there. Germany would also like to become a major semiconductor manufacturer, as Olaf Scholz hinted.

The State Chancellor of Germany made on Friday at one of the events dedicated to the digitalization of the local economy. With targeted investment, he said, Germany could become a major producer of semiconductor components in Europe. “This would allow creating an ecosystem that would contribute to the achievement of calm in the European Union, confidence that we are not dependent on other regions,” said Olaf Scholz.

To this goal, as can be judged from the publications on this topic, Germany is moving quite confidently. Firstly, GlobalFoundries enterprises have been operating here for a long time, which this American company with the participation of Arab capital inherited from AMD, but are now also used to serve many other clients. GlobalFoundries is determined to modernize and expand its facilities around the world, except that it no longer claims to master advanced lithographic technologies, limiting itself to the 12-nm process technology.

Secondly, in German Magdeburg, Intel intends to build a couple of large enterprises for testing and packaging chips, up to 17 billion euros should be allocated for these purposes. There are also original local chip manufacturers in Germany - the same Infineon has three enterprises in the country. The transition of the automotive industry to electrification and automation of the driving process will require a sharp increase in the production of semiconductor components for specific purposes, so if Germany wants to keep up with the train of technological progress, it will have to develop the production of chips on its territory. All of Europe at the end of 2020 controlled 7.2% of the world's production capacity in the semiconductor sector, but if no action is taken, according to ESIA experts, this share will decrease to 5% by the middle of the decade. Rumors also regularly attribute TSMC's intention to build a chip manufacturing facility in Germany for local customers.