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The Styria-based microelectronics manufacturer AT&S welcomes the announcement of the Austrian Federal Government to endow investments in the country’s microelectronics industry with three billion euros up until 2031. These funds are an important step towards Europe’s technological independence and lay the foundation for sustainable growth in economic sectors that will be crucial in the future. The current draft budget provides for funding the Austrian microelectronics industry with a total of three billion euros in the next seven years. The new budget, which will be definitively adopted in November, also includes additional funds from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy amounting to 50 million euros, which will increase the funds available in Austria for the European funding project IPCEI ME/CT (II) (Important Projects of Common European Interest) to 255 million euros.
“Austria is a leading location for microchips in Europe. As a result, the number of future-oriented jobs will expand in the long term, generating prosperity. With nearly three billion euros to be invested in the coming years, we can support research and new investments of semiconductor companies along the entire value chain in Austria,” Economics Minister Martin Kocher said last week.
AT&S has long been engaged in efforts to create internationally competitive framework conditions for the microelectronics industry in Austria. “We are pleased with the government’s clear commitment to an industrial policy focus on microelectronics. Without microelectronics, there will be no digitalization, no green energy transition and no sustainable growth. If Europe and Austria want to prevail in global competition, we must create the right conditions. Such bold investments in Austria, combined with the European funding programmes, provide a good foundation. Now we have to keep working to build know-how and capacities along the entire value chain,” says AT&S CEO Andreas Gerstenmayer.
Styrian heart for Europe’s microelectronics
The additional funds complement the investments made by AT&S as part of the European IPCEI programs and in the future also as part of the Chips Act. The first IPCEI for microelectronics, which AT&S recently completed, resulted, among other things, in the development of power-saving energy supply for electric cars and a new copper recycling plant, which is already successfully used at the AT&S plant in Leoben.
The second IPCEI for microelectronics ME/CT (II) is currently running and now provides Austrian companies with a total of 225 million euros for research, development and building industrial capacities. As part of IPCEI ME/CT (II), AT&S is investing more than half a billion euros in building a research and production centre for IC substrates and packaging technologies in Leoben, which is unique in Europe.
