If 2022 was the year of announcements for the chip industry, 2023 will be the year of billion-dollar executions.

After all, Europe and America need to get the subsidy-heavy Chips Acts wrapped up and thus further investments in new factories on the way.

In addition, an industry heavyweight such as the British ARM Group is aiming to go public again.

The former industry leader Intel is working on new business models, group structures and investments.

The large Asian contract manufacturers TSMC and Samsung are ramping up further production lines in their home markets and putting the finishing touches on their new factories in the USA.

European manufacturers such as Infineon, NXP and ST Microelectronics are also spending a lot of money to expand their capacities, in some cases significantly, in the medium term.

Stephen Finsterbusch

Editor in Business.

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Against the background of the so-called chip war between America and China, the industry will have to tighten its supply chains in the west and reposition itself in the east.

In view of the geopolitical upheavals, global bottlenecks, rising prices, the massive storage of industrial customers and the reluctance of many private customers to buy new PCs, this presents many suppliers with high hurdles.

The analysts at Gartner expect sales to decline by 4 percent in 2023, IC Insights by minus 6 percent and Semiconductor Intelligence by minus 20 percent.

This downturn is already affecting semiconductor manufacturers.

After all, their chips are something like the hearts and brains of computers of all kinds. While the analysts at Roland Berger wrote about a market correction back in the fall, it is now in full swing.

Against this background, Intel will cut thousands of jobs.

Job cuts are also on the agenda at contract manufacturer GF and in the semiconductor design house ARM.

Nvidia and Qualcomm missed each other hiring freezes;

AMD speaks of a "prudent control of its personnel costs".

However, Richard Gordon, vice president of analyst firm Gartner, writes in a report: “While the deterioration in the macroeconomic environment will weaken consumer demand, we expect relatively better semiconductor consumption.

As a result, markets such as industrials, telecom infrastructure and data centers will be less impacted by consumer sentiment and spending in the near term.”

Despite the downturn ahead of them, many chip manufacturers are stepping down on the investment pedal.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association SIA, over the past two years around 40 new factories have been announced around the world – most of them in Asia.

China and Taiwan in particular are putting the pressure on, but so are Korea and Japan.

America is following, Europe is following.

Intel announced earlier this year that it would create a completely new chip supply chain across the EU - from design development to packaging.

Germany is said to be the central node with half a dozen factories.

Infineon doesn't want to be inferior.

The Munich group plans to build a new factory in Dresden for 5 billion euros.

The US contract manufacturer GF is investing at least another billion in its plant in Saxony.

ST Microelectronics is expanding a factory in Italy by 2026 and is collaborating with GF at the French sites.