SEMICON Europa Europe's Chip Industry Meets in the Eye of the Storm

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Incap Electronics Germany GmbH

ROHM Semiconductor GmbH

Caltest Instruments GmbH

SEMICON Europa will take place alongside electronica in Munich from 10 to 13 November. The programme covers topics that will determine the success or failure of Europe's semiconductor ambitions, including advanced packaging, power semiconductors, sensors, and how European fabs can compete.

"Europe's Next Era: Navigating the Perfect Storm" – the motto SEMI has chosen for this year's SEMICON Europa is unusually blunt for a trade fair. It reflects an industry dealing with geopolitical tension, pressure on supply chains and the hardware demands of AI all at once, while Europe tries to rebuild its manufacturing base. For four days, the semiconductor value chain from materials and equipment to fabs and packaging meets in Munich, under the same roof as electronica's component and system makers.

Packaging Moves Centre Stage

Transistor scaling is no longer the only route to more performance, and much of the progress now happens between the chips. The Advanced Packaging Conference on Wednesday, 11 November, at the ICM, covers chiplets and heterogeneous integration, hybrid bonding, and the inspection, metrology and test methods needed to make these structures manufacturable. This is where the programme overlaps most with test and measurement. Tighter bond pitches and stacked dies push inspection and electrical test to their limits, and known-good-die strategies decide the yield of a whole package.

The research institutes on the show floor take a similar line. At the Silicon Saxony joint stand (B1.221), Fraunhofer ENAS lists heterogeneous integration, wafer and chip bonding, packaging, and test and reliability assessment among its topics. Fraunhofer IPMS plans to show an 8-kbit FeMFET memory demonstrator as chip-on-board, its Li-Fi TinySpot optical transceiver, and work from the European APECS and FAMES pilot lines.

Power, Mobility and New Materials

Electrification is a second focus. An Executive Forum session on 11 November deals with electrification and power semiconductors, and the Fab Management Forum on the same day includes emerging applications such as silicon carbide and photonics. Fraunhofer IISB will present novel semiconductor materials for future power devices. For power-electronics designers the underlying issue is clear: wide-bandgap devices only deliver their efficiency gains in volume if substrates, processes and packaging mature together.

Sensing for Physical AI

On 11 November, the MEMS & Imaging Sensors Summit runs under the title "Sensing in the Age of Physical AI". The published agenda includes talks on improving MEMS transduction and optomechanics, NEMS-based inertial sensors aiming for navigation-grade performance in high-volume autonomous applications, and miniaturised rechargeable solid-state micro batteries for implantable medical devices. Here, sensing, medical electronics and energy supply are discussed as one system problem rather than as separate components.

AI and the European Chip Strategy

The Executive Forum opens on 10 November with imec's "ITF Chip into the Future", themed "Building the silicon backbone of Europe's AI leadership". Topics include AI chip design, chiplet architectures, sustainable manufacturing and the NanoIC pilot line. The policy backdrop is timely. In June, the European Commission proposed a successor to the 2023 Chips Act [FACT CHECK: date 3 June 2026], and negotiations are ongoing. Further sessions cover secure-by-design computing, AI in supply-chain planning and "trusted" supply corridors.

The market data looks encouraging on paper. SEMI's latest forecast puts global spending on semiconductor equipment at around 159 billion US dollars for 2026, with the Europe and Middle East region expected to grow fastest [FACT CHECK: figures and regional definition]. Investment in tools, however, does not equal production capacity or market share. Whether Europe's fabs can compete will depend on skills, automation, energy costs and sustainable processes, which are also the topics of the Fab Management Forum.

For developers visiting electronica, SEMICON Europa is a chance to see the technologies inside tomorrow's components and to judge which of them are ready for volume production. It is open to electronica ticket holders. (heh)

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