In Munich this monday‚ three big-name European chip makers met up after Donald Trumpʼs second-term win to talk about whats bothering their business. The meet-up brought together Jochen Hanebeck from Infineon Jean-Marc Chery of STMicroelectronics and Kurt Sievers representing NXP
The chip-making bosses pointed out a growing headache: different regions wanting their own production lines (which makes everything super-costly). Over the last 10 years or so governments keep pushing for local chip making; its becoming a real pain for these companies
The danger is that we will accelerate in this fragmentation
These companies are doing pretty good in China right now — thanks to all those electric cars being made there; but elsewhere things arent so hot except for AI-related stuff. Making separate supply chains for different regions isnt cheap: you need different materials engineers and whole new setups
Sievers made a straight-forward point: no single place can run the whole chip show by itself — and even if they could nobody would want to buy such expensive gadgets. The companies hope that governments will get it: splitting up production just makes everything cost more. These Euro-based firms make chips for cars power controls and factory stuff; they know what theyre talking about