- The company aims to utilize graphene to connect various chips together to allow seamless communication.
- To transmit data, the system would use light other than electricity, which will boost the efficiency of the chips.
The German based chip making company, dubbed Black Semiconductor, has told the media that it received 254.4 million euros (US$274 million as investment, mostly from the German government in an effort to bolster the semiconductor industry. According to the spokesperson of the company, this move is a clear indication that Europe is undertaking all kinds of efforts to become globally competitive in the chip manufacturing industry.
Speaking of the investment, around 228.7 million euros (US$248 million) has been invested in public funds by the German ministry of economic affairs and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, while Porsche Ventures and venture capital firm Project A made the rest of the 25.7 million euro (US$28 million) equity portion of the funding, as per reports by CNBC. According to the spokesperson of the company, the invested amount will be utilized in setting up a top-notch production facility in Aachen, Germany.
With an ambition of mass production by 2031, the company is also looking forward to growing its employee strength from 30 to 120 by 2026. The investments in this start-up, assisted by public finances, shows Europe’s strenuous efforts to beat the US in the semiconductor ecosystem. The US government has already provided billions of dollars of funding to grow the industry.
Unlike the Asian firms like TSMC in Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea, Europe has never been able to lead the chip-manufacturing industry. The US, which also once dominated the semiconductor manufacturing industry, is now struggling with the growing manufacturing pace in Asia.
Black Semiconductor CEO Daniel Schall told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday, "Germany understood, and the whole European Union understood, that it’s important to have a say on the table and sovereignty doesn’t mean that you have to copy everything into Europe that doesn’t make any sense but that you can put something on the table. What we can do in Germany and in Europe is on the design side."
