Borel's European chip industry proposal in full

Joseph Borel, former executive vice president in central research and development at STMicroelectronics NV, has sent a 12-page proposal to the French government calling for the consolidation of Infineon Technologies, NXP and ST into a European champion chip company.

EETimes Europe obtained a copy of the proposal, entitled: "Nanotechnologies in Europe: There is room for a single profitable share application-driven foundry".

Borel has given EE Times Europe the authorization to publish it. Here is the full text.

1-European critical situation
2-Cost of nanotechnologies
3-Interdependence between product and process
4-Dedicated Silicon Foundry threat
5-The INTEL way
6-Implication in terms of cost
7-Global European rationale

1-European critical situation

Looking at European semiconductor business versus worldwide competition brings some concerns about what is going to be the short term perspective of technology development for several reasons:

-Recent decisions show a willingness for semiconductor companies to disinvest in terms of foundry business, expecting their semiconductor chips to be made by foundries.

-European semiconductor companies on the other side have strong expertise in mixed analog digital, an added value for most of the new applications on the market (wireless, automotive…).

-This is well suited for the needs of European system houses very competitive in several markets such as wireless, automotive, consumer…

-The size of the European semiconductor companies is too low for facing individually the huge investment constraints in their separate fabs.

-Nanotechnologies to some extend are close to full custom though handling huge amounts of digital devices complexity (several hundred thousand devices per chip including analog and digital blocks).

-Design costs are so high that only a few, large volume, application sectors will allow a return of investment.

In this context the R&D activity is generally of high quality and the "international poles of competencies" can efficiently help in the industry support.