Graphenea receives government officials as part of PERTE effort
On Dec 20th, Graphenea in its headquarters in San Sebastian received two government officials who visited the company offices, cleanroom, and R&D labs. Jaime Martorell, Commissioner of the Spanish Government for PERTE (Strategic Projects for the Recovery and Economic Transformation) of Semiconductors, and Estibaliz Hernáez, vice-minister of Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation of the Basque Government, were presented with our roadmap and future plans.
The visit comes as part of the PERTE Chip national effort. PERTE is a group of 10 capital projects by the government of Spain with an aim to comprehensively increase the competence of Spain in different areas, such as energy and electric vehicles. The PERTE for microelectronics and semiconductors (PERTE Chip) is by far the largest of the ten funded by the EU, with the dedicated 12.25 billion EUR representing a third of the total investment in PERTE, with target areas spanning from manufacturing of advanced nodes (<5nm) and mature nodes to photonics, chip design and alternative architectures and materials. The funding will be implemented in a relatively short time, to strengthen the semiconductor industry ecosystem in Spain by 2027.
Picture: Jaime Martorell (fourth from left) and Estibaliz Hernáez (fourth from right) and their teams touring Graphenea headquarters.
When PERTE Chip is through, Spain aims to have microchip foundries akin to those existing in the United States, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as companies capable of designing chips for mobile phones or computers Made in Spain. The project is well aligned with the European Chips Act approved last year by the European Comission, which ambitions to make Europe self-sufficient in chip, component and system production, which is now not the case: of the 1 trillion microchips manufactured in the world each year, only 10% are of European origin. PERTE Chip strives to bridge this gap, making Spain a part of the European “Silicon Valley” and raising Europe’s chip market share to 20% by the year 2030.
The funding for PERTE projects comes from the European Next Generation fund, which is a 750 billion EUR post-pandemic recovery plan. The largest portion of the fund will be invested towards making national economies more resilient and better prepared for the future.
Graphenea continues to serve public interests through numerous projects and interactions with society stakeholders.
