All over the world, manufacturers are asking for them and they cannot find enough of them: electronic chips are in increasing demand. But a great shortage has set in and it is not about to end. According to Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec, a semiconductor specialist, “it will take another twelve to eighteen months to achieve something more balanced between demand and our capacity to produce”.
“The semiconductor is the basis of innovations in multiple markets”, explains Paul Boudre, and not only in the world of microelectronics: “We will find it in medicine, in education or in the automobile.” Yes “in the existing factories, the situation is improving”, he continues, “we must also build new capacities”. Soitec, a Grenoble-based company, has three factories in France, including one in full expansion, and another in Singapore. “We have a project for a new factory that we will decide on in the coming months”, adds the leader.
The French group is experiencing very strong growth. It forecasts, for this year 2021-2022, a turnover of 975 million dollars, up 45%: “We manufacture the base material on which our major customers engrave their components. By designing it, we will give, in the application of the system, a particular performance.”
“There is no smartphone without Soitec. 80% of the world’s population uses our technologies every day.”
Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitecon franceinfo
The company occupies a leading position in these very specific technologies. But overall, in the semiconductor market, Europe is poorly placed. It only weighs 10% of the world market. In France, the state wants to invest six billion euros by 2030 to double the country’s electronic production. “The bet is possible”, believes Paul Bourde: “It’s never too late!”