News: Suppliers
26 June 2024
EC and Italian government awards IPCEI ME/CT funding to GlobalWafers/MEMC to establish 300mm wafer production
GlobalWafers Co Ltd of Hsinchu, Taiwan (GWC, the world’s third largest supplier of semiconductor wafers) says that the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT) — following project authorization by the EU Commission (Directorate General for Competition) — issued an Assignment Decree awarding MEMC Electronic Materials S.p.A. of Novara, Italy an R&D grant of up to €103m to establish Europe’s most advanced 300mm semiconductor wafer production facility. MEMC’s new wafer fab is targeted at filling a critical gap in the European semiconductor supply chain that, until now, has been highly dependent on imports to supply wafers for the most advanced technology platforms.
“Our new MEMC 300mm production facility will support the creation of downstream products in all four of the high-tech Workstreams targeted by the IPCEI-ME/CT [Important Project of Common European Interest in Microelectronics and Communications Technologies] program, namely SENSE (Sensor applications), THINK (Logic applications), ACT (Power Applications), and COMMUNICATE (Communication applications),” notes president Marco Sciamanna. “We are proud to be counted among the 56 companies participating in the program and even prouder to be one of only a handful of the companies to add tangible value to all four of the targeted Workstreams,” he adds.
“In this era of economic regionalization, the European Commission and the Italian Government have strategically targeted the most important investments to build resiliency in the European semiconductor and high-tech sectors. In this regard, GlobalWafers MEMC’s new 300mm Novara fab perfectly fits the European Commission’s definition of ‘Research and Development’ and ‘First Industrial Deployment’ of advanced technology,” says GlobalWafers’ chairwoman Doris Hsu. “As the newest 300mm silicon wafer production facility in Europe, MEMC S.p.A. is utilizing the industry’s most cutting-edge manufacturing technology to meet our clients’ ever more sophisticated requirements.”
With manufacturing facilities in Novara and Merano, MEMC S.p.A. has operated in Italy for decades, producing wafers for hundreds of European and global makers. MEMC S.p.A. wafers are used to fabricate devices used across the entire European high-tech economy, ranging from cars and the industrial-Internet of Things (IOT & IIOT) to consumer electronics and medical equipment. With this expansion, MEMC is bringing 600 construction jobs to Novara, in addition to 150 new long-term company jobs. With each new job added in the semiconductor industry, 5.7 additional jobs are supported in the local economy, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
GlobalWafers says that, as a key ESG (environmental, social and governance) imperative, its companies across the globe practice green manufacturing and aim to improve energy efficiency, water conservation, waste management and air pollution control. When fully ramped-up, MEMC S.p.A.’s new 300mm fab will recycle up to half of its water used in production. It also plans to utilize 100% renewable energy to manufacture advanced silicon wafers.
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