France is allowed by the EU to subsidize the construction of the STMicro and GlobalFoundries factory

STMicro and GlobalFoundries may receive a subsidy from the French government for the construction of a chip factory. France is allocating 7.4 billion euros for this. The two companies want to be operating at full capacity by 2027 and then produce 620,000 300mm wafers annually.

The European Commission approves the French plans. The construction coincides with the objectives that Europe wants to achieve with the Chips Act. This law makes state aid possible for chip manufacturers, so that Europe becomes less dependent on foreign parties. STMicro and GlobalFoundries announced last year that they would be jointly building a chip factory near Lyon. The French government initially wanted to contribute 5.7 billion euros, but later said it wanted to allocate more money because of the Chips Act.

That new amount will be 7.4 billion euros, which the French government will now give to the company in the form of subsidies. For this purpose, a chip factory will be built that should be fully operational by 2027. That is a year later than originally intended. With the permission of the European Commission, the factory must give European companies priority in purchasing the products and medium and small companies must have access to test and development areas in the factory to conduct their own research and development.

The factory must produce 620,000 wafers with a diameter of 300 mm annually. These are mainly intended for the automotive and aviation industries and for the rollout of 5G and 6G networks. These are chips with so-called fully depleted silicon on insulator, or fd-soi, technology that are mainly intended for lower energy consumption.