The Generalitat hopes to attract 22 semiconductor projects

The semiconductor industry is critical to a country's economy and the Generalitat wants to make Catalonia an influential territory in this sector.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
16 December 2022 Friday 23:38
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The Generalitat hopes to attract 22 semiconductor projects

The semiconductor industry is critical to a country's economy and the Generalitat wants to make Catalonia an influential territory in this sector.

These small materials control electrical currents very precisely and, grouped in the form of chips, greatly improve technological applications in sectors such as the automotive industry or consumer electronics. They are key to the digital sovereignty of a territory and for this reason, Catalonia has proposed not to miss the boat in attracting projects that invest in this direction.

This Friday, President Pere Aragonès announced that the Generalitat is working to attract 22 foreign projects related to the design and production of semiconductors. If they come to fruition, he assured him, they could attract a total investment of 1.6 billion euros and create 1,800 jobs within two or three years.

"We are sure that we can take a leap forward for the Catalan industry because we have large infrastructures and research institutions, a solid and diversified ecosystem and public tools to continue growing", Aragonès said at a meeting held at the Palau de la Generalitat with 50 representatives of the business and research sector.

Currently, Catalonia already has a total of 104 companies and research entities related to the development of semiconductors. In total, they employ 4,400 professionals and have a turnover of around 160 million euros. In general, they are SMEs (81%) although there are also reference multinationals. In fact, the investments announced by Cisco, Monolitic Power Systems or Intel, which have chosen Barcelona to locate their microchip design centers, stand out.

This week, he also learned that the Catalan company Ideaded has launched the largest private semiconductor clean room in southern Europe in Viladecans. As regards research institutions, the presence of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center stands out, an international benchmark, and also the Institute of Photonic Sciences.

The Generalitat considers that within the industry, Catalonia can stand out in chip design due to its ability to create knowledge and attract talent. Currently, manufacturing is mainly concentrated in Asia, in countries such as Taiwan, China or South Korea.

The strategy of the Catalan executive is in line with the objectives set by the central government, which has created a Perte endowed with aid worth 12,250 million, and the European Union, which plans to invest 43,000 million euros in promoting this key sector in the technological sovereignty of the continent.