German engineering and technology company Bosch has said that everything is on track to open its new semiconductor factory in Dresden, Germany, in June. The facility will allow Bosch to target the rapidly growing demand from Europe's automotive sector, which has been dealing with an acute shortage of chips for the past few months.
Bosch Dresden. Credit: Bosch
Bosch has already begun putting its first wafers - which are just 60 micrometres thick - through the production process at the Dresden facility in January. The new production plant will manufacture power semiconductors for use in a range of applications in electric vehicles and beyond.
Read more: Semiconductor shortage causes major automakers to cut production
Later this month, Bosch will start the first production runs of some highly complex and integrated circuits.
A wafer goes through around 700 different processing steps on its journey to becoming a completed semiconductor chip. This long and complex procedure takes over ten weeks, Bosch says. It is aiming for the full start of all production operations at the Dresden plant by the end of this year.
The Dresden plant will be Bosch's second in Germany, complementing its facility in Reutlingen, near Stuttgart. It is being built with an investment of around €1 billion from Bosch, as well as additional funding from the German federal ministry of economic affairs.
Its construction is a response to what Bosch described as the "surging number of areas of application for semiconductors", and its primary focus will be on manufacturing microchips for the automotive sector.
Since late 2020, the automotive industry has been suffering from an acute shortage of semiconductors, often losing out in the face of strong competition from the electronics industry especially, which saw a boom in demand following lockdowns worldwide.
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The shortage has been severe enough to bring multiple automakers to cut their short-term production plans and is encouraging multiple stakeholders in the semiconductor manufacturing chain — at both government and industry levels — to ramp up chip production.
The shortage has been so severe that a number of automakers have cut back their short-term production plans, while several players in the semiconductor manufacturing chain — at both government and industry levels — are now ramping up chip production.
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