Executive Vice President and COO of IMEC, Luc Van den Hove confirmed SEMI’s Europe’s position on a live BBC World News Business Report interview saying that actions are needed to continue competition in the European semiconductor market.
SEMI Europe set up the interview hoping to spread the significance of keeping a semiconductor market in Europe to a wider audience.
Luc Van den Hove said, “To keep Europe competitive, the entire semiconductor ecosystem needs to remain in Europe. Not only state-of-the-art research programs as offered by research centers such as IMEC. Also the complete value chain including manufacturing which is now moving more and more to Asia and US needs to stay in Europe. In this way, the European industry can have cost- and time-efficient access to the critical semiconductor technologies.”
Future Horizons, a semiconductor industry analyst company, revealed that Europe has maintained its world market share at around 12% over the past three decades despite competition from the US and Asia. In addition, increasingly uncompetitive manufacturing infrastructure has remained Europe’s weak point.
Click the link below to see the interview.