On January 14, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the Innovation Strategy until 2030 from the Ministry of Digital Affairs, according to which Ukraine seeks to establish its own chip production. What options are being considered?
On January 14, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the Innovation Strategy until 2030 from the Ministry of Digital Affairs, according to which Ukraine seeks to establish its own chip production. What options are being considered?
Chips are the foundation of any electronics. The largest players in the chip manufacturing market are Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung .
According to Forbes, the US has allocated $52 billion to finance domestic chip manufacturing capacity in 2022. The European Union plans to invest $108 billion in this direction by 2030. China — more than $100 billion by 2030, in addition to at least $250 billion allocated for the «Made in China» program by 2025.
According to Forbes, the Ministry of Digital Affairs is currently considering two options for launching microchip production.
The Ministry of Digital Affairs wants to launch the production of chips with a size of 180, 130 and 110 nanometers (nm). These are not the most advanced developments (the American Intel and TSMC are working on 1.8 nm and 4 nm technologies, respectively). It is quite possible to cover the needs of the defense, agricultural and automotive sectors with such chips, Forbes quotes one of the members of the working group at the Ministry of Digital Affairs, Oleksandr Grudanov. «Smaller semiconductors at 10 nm or 7 nm are used in smartphones, data centers and for artificial intelligence,» he adds. «This is a competitive niche, and the cost of building a factory is tens of billions of dollars.»
The business model could be a Multi-Project Wafer, which allows for different types of integrated circuits from different developers (or customers) to be placed on a single silicon wafer, the document says. «Several hundred chips can fit on a single wafer,» it says. Initial production plans are for up to 1,000 such wafers per month.
«The reference figure for building a factory using the licensing model is up to $1 billion,» says another estimate by Grudanov. «We calculated several options, but we invested in all of them within this amount.»
In this case, technology licensing is paid separately. If a strategic partner is invited, the estimate is determined by him, adds a member of the working group at the Ministry of Digital Affairs.
