Bulgaria is strong in chip design and should take advantage
Source：Economic BG
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Sofia
Update Time：2022/11/04
Bulgaria has significant achievements and traditions in microelectronics, which today continue to pave its way to the extremely promising semiconductor market . Estimated at 640 billion dollars at the moment, it will still grow under the pressure of business needs, but also of the political will to stimulate it. And our country has its strong positions in the development and design of chips, which it must focus on to take the sector even further in its economy.
The participants in the AI N' CYBER 2022 conference , organized by Economic.bg and the Digital National Coalition, in partnership with NATO, the European Investment Bank and the Friedrich Adenauer Foundation, united around this opinion. The topic of chips found a place in the program of the event, since it is they that provide a field for deployment of artificial intelligence systems.
In the 1990s, Europe accounted for about 30% of the chips produced in the world. Today, this share has shrunk to only 8-9% due to various reasons, such as the economic scale and the lack of investments, reminded Dimitar Nikolov, professor of electronic engineering and technologies at the Technical University in Sofia.
Today, however, the continent's industry is on the threshold of a turning point, as Brussels decided to prioritize the sector and support it with over 43 billion euros. Positive forecasts herald the announced investments of giants such as Intel, as well as the launched national initiatives in Germany, France, and Italy.
The potential of Bulgaria
In the 1980s, there were about 120,000 people employed in the microelectronics sector in the country. As in all of Europe, there is a decline here. Now there are several companies in our country, including the global giant GlobalFoundries and the Belgian Melexis.
Most of the companies here do chip design, so we can focus on developing specialists in this field first. Also in pilot capacities, such as packaging, which is at the end of the production cycle and is becoming more and more important," Dimitar Nikolov believes.
This is also one of the interesting niches for the development of the industry. It is indicative of this that part of Intel's 80 billion investment in Europe will be directed specifically to a new semiconductor assembly and packaging plant in Italy.
"Increasing density and integration are current trends. It's going to increase the functions in each package, and there will be a need to design the whole system, to do different technologies, to bring them together," commented Gregory O'Malley of GlobalFoundries.
Unsurprisingly, there is a huge need for personnel in this industry as well. “Because semiconductors require different specialties. A foundry needs chemists, physicists, mechanical and electrical engineers, mathematicians and many more highly qualified personnel," noted Dimitar Nikolov. According to him, Bulgaria should focus on the development of such, encourage students to develop in this field, so that there is a way for the companies to grow as well.
More preparation won't hurt. We see good specialist software developers, but on the hardware side we have some problems," said O'Malley.
The representative of the hardware side of the business in our country is the native "Milara". Development in this area is more challenging because of the need for more time for return on investment and training of personnel.
Source: https://www.economic.bg/bg/a/view/bylgarija-e-silna-v-dizajna-na-chipove-i-trjabva-da-se-vyzpolzva