German think tank: Europe's 2nm fabs are doomed to fail
Latest update time：2021-08-31 22:33
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Stiftung Neue Verantwortung eV, an independent non-profit think tank based in Berlin, Germany, published a report concluding that there is no business case to support the production of 2nm chips in Europe.
According to reports, this white paper was prepared in part based on the 2030 Digital Compass 10-year plan developed by the European Commission, which sets the goal of establishing leading semiconductor manufacturing in the European Union (EU). The goal is to operate a semiconductor manufacturing plant with a 2nm process node within the EU within 10 years.
But the think tank's white paper concludes that while technically the EU can build and equip fabs, such fabs will only be sustainable if supported by a strong business case. Otherwise, it will waste tens of billions of euros that could be used elsewhere. It will also run counter to Europe's long-term trend of reducing investment in chip manufacturing.
As of December 2020, total wafer capacity (millions of wafers per month) by region and technology node is shown in the figure above. As can be seen from the figure, Europe has invested almost no money in chip manufacturing over the past decade, while China's capacity has tripled.
The authors conclude that Europe has little demand for high-end chips and cannot expect to sell them to regions where they are in high demand, primarily the U.S. American fabless chip companies will buy them from TSMC, Samsung, or possibly Intel, all of which plan to build advanced fabs in the United States.
"NXP and ST do use 7nm and 5nm for production, but this is far from enough," Jan-Peter Kleinhans, the author of the white paper, said in a press release.
The above chart indicates the customer's estimated share of 7nm and 5nm wafer shipments by 2021. It can be seen that Europe has no specified customers and is included in the RoM area.
Jan-Peter Kleinhans is the head of the "Technology and Geopolitics" project. Currently, his work focuses on the intersection of the global semiconductor supply chain and geopolitics. He went on to say that Europe has 2 potential routes to 2nm, but it seems that neither route will reach the desired end point.
1) Incentivize Samsung and/or TSMC to invest in Europe.
2) Create an EU consortium to build and operate a wafer fab using process technology licensed from Samsung or TSMC
3) Create an EU consortium to build and operate a fab using its own IP
4) Rely on Intel to establish leading foundry capabilities in Europe.
Kleinhans pointed out that there is little that Europe can invent to attract Samsung or TSMC to come to Europe because there is no large customer base here. He said: "European fabs want to attract American customers? And this does not seem to show." In addition, due to the cost of electricity, the operating costs of European fabs are much higher than those in Asia.
This makes options two or three more likely to be implemented, but no more likely to succeed.
Finally, Intel's proposal to move to foundry supply in Ireland and Israel, and possibly build another fab in Europe, should be welcomed, but is unlikely to reach leading positions. But Intel should be welcomed, as supplying Europe and Europe with state-of-the-art chips for automotive and industrial applications is a recognized need in Europe.
In response to a question about the EU taking extreme subsidy measures to pay advanced wafer fab plants that manufacture in Europe, Kleinhans said this would violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.
It is possible that the EU and countries around the world could abandon the WTO and reintroduce tariffs and other trade measures to achieve the goal of semiconductor strategic independence. But this is not an issue that the Kleinhans report considers.
Their main conclusion is that it is unwise to focus on leading-edge wafer manufacturing in pursuit of technological sovereignty for semiconductors. Without a business case, it could waste billions of euros in public and private funds.
To this end, the white paper points out that the EU is better off spending the money on building Europe's leading chip design capabilities so that Europe's leading demand will have global significance. If this goal can be achieved within ten to two years, Europe may have leverage to attract manufacturing capabilities.
This is something the European Commission has recognized in the past, but has been unable to do anything about. Kleinhans noted that Europe’s share of the global fabless semiconductor sector has fallen from 4% to 2% between 2010 and 2020. Renesas is set to acquire Dialog Semiconductor, so this downward trend is likely to continue.
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