Key Challenges the Semiconductor Industry is Facing
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Elmos Semiconductor SE, which started out as a spin-off from TU Dortmund University and has its headquarters in the neighboring TZDO technology center. Dr. Jan Dienstuhl, Chief Sales Officer and TU alumnus, reported on challenges and trends in semiconductor chips for the automotive industry. The Future Dialog offers companies from the region the opportunity to illuminate current issues from their perspective and in the context of the university that are important for the future as well as exchange thoughts and ideas with students, researchers and staff of TU Dortmund University. The Center for Entrepreneurship & Transfer (CET) is responsible for organizing the event series.
The car of the future, according to Dienstuhl, will be distinguished by four features: It will have an electric motor, be jam-packed with software, connected to the internet, and self-driving. As yet, however, the average car on German roads is still quite different, but already today every new car sold contains an average of eight semiconductor chips from Elmos Semiconductor SE. They control the interior lighting, for example, trigger airbags or are found in park assist systems. As Dienstuhl told some 90 guests in the Seminar Room Building: “There are far more semiconductors in electric cars than in conventional petrol or diesel ones, which is why vehicle electrification is beneficial to our industry.” The demand for semiconductors will increase significantly in the foreseeable future.
Developing new chips is complex and expensive
Semiconductor chips are highly complex structures whose performance doubles on average every two years – even if they are slowly reaching their physical limits, said Dienstuhl. Since between 500 and 1,000 individual production steps are required, it takes up to six months to make a chip. Accordingly, the development of new, more powerful chips is complex, costly and takes more than two years.
Up until a year ago, the aftermath of the chip crisis, which began with the coronavirus pandemic, was still being felt: During the lockdowns, people stayed at home over long periods of time and bought more smartphones, tablets and televisions, whose manufacturers compete with the automotive industry for semiconductor chips. The hype surrounding bitcoins also led to bottlenecks, as mining the cryptocurrency requires high-performance computers – whose processors also contain semiconductors.
Skills shortage is a worry for the industry
At that time, there was a growing call for manufacturers to reduce their dependence on the market leaders, who are based above all in Taiwan and South Korea. The production of precursors, such as quartz sand, is already globally intermeshed. “Independence is unachievable, but we still need to have strong cards in our hand,” said Dienstuhl. “To achieve this, we need young people who want to build up further expertise in Germany and shape this future with us.” The sector is worried, he said, about the threatening shortage of skilled workers. One forecast predicts that by 2030 37% of all STEM graduates worldwide will come from China, 26.7% from India and only 1.4% from Germany.
Elmos Semiconductor SE was founded in 1984 by Günter Zimmer, who was a professor at TU Dortmund University at that time, together with Dr. Klaus Weyer. Today, the company employs over 1,300 staff at 15 locations worldwide and is a leading manufacturer of automotive mixed-signal semiconductors. Dr. Jan Dienstuhl studied electrical engineering at TU Dortmund University, where he also earned his doctoral degree.
Many people who had come to the event in the Seminar Room Building took the opportunity after his presentation to ask questions and take an active part in the discussion, which then continued over food and drinks. The next Future Dialog is scheduled for June.