Yahoo Finance Chip Materials Maker Soitec May Follow Client TSMC to the US
(Bloomberg) -- French chip materials company Soitec is considering building a factory in the US, as customers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. win government incentives for significant expansions from Arizona to Texas.
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Soitec is considering a US plant alongside existing facilities in Singapore, Belgium and France, Chief Executive Officer Pierre Barnabé told Bloomberg News, as one of the options to grow its business. The company, which develops specialty materials that meld with silicon wafers for semiconductors, counts TSMC among its biggest clients.
Asia’s largest company announced this week it will build a third factory in Arizona with $11.6 billion in grants and loans from the US. Washington is trying to bring advanced chipmaking onto American soil, as tensions with China highlight the risks of relying on the region for most of the world’s semiconductors.
“We are in a decoupling of our world, and we need to be present,” Barnabé said during a visit to Taiwan this week. “Being in the US also allows us to be quicker in addressing our customers.”
Read More: TSMC’s Sales Surge Most Since 2022 After Riding AI Chip Boom
Like other chip industry firms, Soitec is grappling with a growing thicket of restrictions on China as the US tries to contain its rival’s tech industry. Barnabé said that while export controls over semiconductors are creating challenges, he doesn’t expect them to impact the company’s sales to the world’s No. 2 economy.
While Soitec is no longer able to license advanced technology to China, its partnership with Shanghai Simgui Technology Co. — which licensed technology 10 years ago — remains an important one, he said.
The company has traditionally relied heavily on the smartphone arenas but is diversifying into the business of silicon carbide chip materials for electric vehicles, as well as material for super low-power chips for devices such as security cameras.
French research center CEA-Leti — which backed Soitec at its inception decades ago — invented that latter technology and is expecting to receive European Union Chips Act funding to further advance the technology with a new pilot production line, CEO Sébastien Dauvé told Bloomberg News.
(Updates the 2nd paragraph with more details)
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