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"You can't make an advanced chip without European technology,"
Luc Van den Hove told reporters at the ITF World conference on
Tuesday.
He noted that the world's biggest equipment maker ASML depended
on German optics and imec research. Europe also houses smaller
but crucial equipment companies such as ASM International.
Earlier on Tuesday Belgium-based imec announced that it would
host a 2.5-billion euro (2.72 billion) pilot line for
researching future generations of chips that are more advanced
than the 2 nanometer which is just entering production.
But Van den Hove said that should not be seen as a prelude to
any domestic European chip company or startup building its own
2-nanometre or better commercial plant such as Japanese firm
Rapidus is attempting with government support.
"Whether we should build our own sub-two nanometer foundry, I
have my doubts whether that makes sense to say it mildly," he
said.
Rather, Europe should continue to woo construction of such
plants from the global big three logic chip manufacturers, TSMC,
Intel and Samsung.
Currently, only Intel has plans to build a major plant on
European soil manufacturing better than 2 nanometer chips, in
Magdeburg, Germany, though TSMC has plans for a less than 22
nanometer plant in Dresden - a "legacy node" or slightly older
generation of technology in industry terms.
Van den Hove said that Europe needed those too.
"We have to make sure that we avoid a shortage of legacy nodes,
because in China, there's a lot of capacity being built up on
legacy nodes," a potential geopolitical risk, he said.
Europe also has strong legacy node chipmakers of its own, he
said, naming NXP, Infineon, Bosch, and STMicroelectronics as
"all leaders in their specific segment".
($1 = 0.9200 euros)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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