Silicon Box, a hi-tech company from Singapore, has chosen Novara to build its Italian chip factory. A total investment of 3.2 billion, for a plant that will be the first of its kind in Europe. The announcement was made yesterday at the Ministry of Enterprise, after the Minister of Enterprise Adolfo Urso worked on the operation. With him, the co-founders of Silicon Box, Byung Joon Han, Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai, the president of the Piedmont Region, Alberto Cirio, and the mayor of Novara, Alessandro Canelli.
THE CHOICE
The Novara site was selected by the company after a long evaluation. Rumors within the company speak of a choice that was initially supposed to fall on Veneto. But the company’s top management was worried about the infrastructural deficiencies in the Vigasio area. Piedmont, on the other hand, is said to have prepared an ad hoc industrial project that has convinced the company’s top management. “We will continue to look at the surrounding regions for further developments,” however, CEO Byung Joon Han specified.
The factory is expected to start production in 2028 and serve customers across Europe. In four years, there should be 1,600 new direct jobs, in addition to indirect ones for the construction of the factory and for the supplies and logistics related to it. The plant will be built and operated according to European “net zero” principles, reducing the environmental impact. The investment, however, is still subject to approval by the European Commission.
According to Sehat Sutardja, the site will serve to «build a new era for artificial intelligence and supercomputers, with products with lower environmental impact and lower costs». In particular, chiplets will be made in the factory, hi-tech processors that allow more efficient data communication and solve the problem of transferring information between hardware and software. In short, one of the key products of the digital transition. The site will therefore help meet demand for semiconductor assembly, mainly in the European market, to enable new technologies such as next-generation applications in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and electric vehicle components.
«From the beginning of 2024 – commented Minister Urso – if we add Silicon Box’s investment to the 5 billion investment by StMicroelectronics, that of Aixtron in Piedmont, and others in Emilia and Lombardy, in addition to the pilot line on high-performance materials high resistance in the Etna Valley in Sicily, we reach over 9 billion on microelectronics in Italy, more than in other European countries”.
PRODUCTION
Silicon Box’s investment is part of the European strategy marked by the Chips Act, which aims to double the EU’s global market share in the semiconductor sector by 2030, from 10% to at least 20%. But also in the Italian strategy for microelectronics, which allocates 4 billion in the next few years to attract large investments in Italy and aims to strengthen advanced industrial research. Stm will instead build a new plant in Catania for the production in large volumes of silicon carbide (SiC) for devices and power modules, as well as for testing and packaging activities.
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