The factory of the bankrupt BelGaN has found a buyer. The European investor wants to resume chip production in Oudenaarde and may employ up to 500 people.
A European investor is going to take over the factory of the bankrupt BelGaN in Oudenaarde. This was reported by Belga on the authority of the curator. BelGaN went bankrupt in September 2024 after no buyer was found for the company. However, there now appears to be interest in the factory itself.
BelGaN specialized in gallium nitride chips, but was unable to generate sufficient profit from them. Gallium nitride chips are interesting for modern compact chargers, among other things, and for use in electric vehicles and data centers. In 2022, the company still expanded with an acquisition and a complete transition to gallium nitride (GaN) chip production. However, for BelGaN, the switch from classic silicon chip production proved to be fatal.
Photonic chips
The new owner of the factory will take over the site with clean rooms for 20.35 million euros, but has no interest in the equipment to build GaN chips.
The intention is to produce photonic chips in the factory. These require a different production line. Such chips function not only based on electricity, but also on light. Applications are numerous, especially in situations where fast data transfer with low latency is important. You can think again of the automotive sector and data centers, as well as AI-related workloads.
Unknown investor
It is not clear who exactly is taking over the factory. The takeover talks are reportedly not yet finalized. The investor has already paid an advance of two million euros to emphasize the seriousness of their interest. How many jobs the site will offer is also uncertain, but it could be around 500 positions.
We do already know that the party in question is European. Two other interested parties came from China and India respectively. They miss out.
With the investment in the BelGaN site, commercial chip production seems to be returning to Belgian soil. This is good news for Belgium, which with research institute Imec still remains at the forefront of R&D in chip design.