EU 20% chip goal is totally unrealistic

The ambitious goal of the EU’s $43 billion Chips Act, which aims to secure a 20% world market share for European producers by 2030, has been dismissed as ‘totally unrealistic’ by ASML CEO Peter Wennink.

Wennink highlights that despite positive investments in fabs by major players like TSMC, Bosch, NXP, and Infineon benefiting the European car industry, he asserts, ‘It’s not enough at all. If you want to reach 20%, you need to calculate the substantial investment required to build here.’

In 2022, NXP CEO Kurt Sievers estimated, ‘We would need €500 billion investment in Europe to reach the 20 percent market share goal.’

SEMI’s data reveals that this year, China is expected to have 8.6 million 8-inch equivalent wafer per month (wpm) capacity, Taiwan 5.7 million wpm, Korea 5.1 million wpm, Japan 4.7 million wpm, the USA 3.1 million wpm, Europe 2.7 million wpm, and Southeast Asia 1.7 million wpm.

Currently holding about 8% of the industry’s capacity and market share measured by value, Europe faces the challenge of scaling up to 20% in a global landscape where capacity is growing at approximately 6% annually. Achieving this would require the construction and full-volume production of around a dozen new fabs by 2030.