Chipmaker TSMC is expanding its European presence. By the end of this year, it plans to open a chip design center in Munich, close to the previously announced production facility.
TSMC plans to open a new location in the Bavarian city of Munich in the third quarter of 2025, according to the German newspaper Heise. At this site, chips will not be produced, but designed. TSMC is building on the announcement of a chip factory that will also be established in Germany.
Munich was chosen due to its central location on the European continent. In Munich, TSMC will encounter Apple, among others, which also has a research center there. Job openings for the site are already available on LinkedIn, although it’s unclear how many positions TSMC will open.
From Dresden to Munich
TSMC must feel home in Germany. Earlier, Dresden was chosen as the location for TSMC’s first European chip factory. The groundbreaking took place last summer, although it will likely take about five years before the production capacity is fully operational.
It can be advantageous to already set up a design center in the vicinity (Munich and Dresden are about 460 kilometers apart). The designs conceived in Munich will be produced by TSMC itself or by its European partner ESMC. ESMC is a joint venture between TSMC, Bosch, Infineon and NXP, which is subsidized by the European Union.
It is not yet known whether Europe will contribute financially to TSMC’s design center. The presence of TSMC and other global chip giants is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Chips Act, which recently received a scathing report.
Indispensable
TSMC is expanding its facilities across the globe. The geopolitical fires in which its home base in Taiwan is constantly caught necessitate the company to develop and produce chips elsewhere as well. TSMC already has design centers in the United States, Canada, China and Japan, and soon in Germany too.
With these investments, TSMC aims to strengthen its market position as the largest chip manufacturer. Intel and Samsung are competing for that title, but when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admits he can’t do without TSMC, it says a lot about the company’s importance to the global chip industry.
read also