UK ramps up investment in semiconductor development

The UK is ramping up investment in semiconductor development, striving to build local supply chains for a technology that is becoming critical to modernising the automotive sector, with widespread further applications across electronics and telecommunications.

The UK department for business, energy and industrial strategy in late June awarded £73mn ($91mn) of additional funding to 10 projects committed to achieving low-carbon technology in the automotive industry. The funding is provided through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and the recipients span multiple technologies ranging from future battery design to creating lighter-weight vehicles.

Among them is a development team bringing together automakers BMW and McLaren Applied, Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult (CSAC), Customer Interconnect Limited (CIL), Lyra Electronics and the University of Warwick, with the aim of fostering a new UK supply chain for subcomponents and system capability for the future of electromobility.

"It is an exciting time for the UK automotive industry — we are on the precipice of an innovation landslide. The technology we invest in now is set to make an impact on the next generation of vehicles. The 10 projects chosen to receive funding will all develop the next iteration of electrification solutions — showing that it is fast becoming the technology of choice for a wide range of vehicles and that it is vital to ensuring a sustainable low-carbon future," APC director of technology and projects John Beasley said.

Meanwhile, Cardiff University-led consortium CSconnected last week won £43.7mn of state funding to help it drive forward "the world's first compound semiconductor cluster", pulling together 12 entities spanning industry, academic institutions and government. The investment is provided through UK Research and Innovation's flagship Strength in Places fund.

CSconnected aims to establish a new photonics supply chain for communications and sensing markets, a new semiconductor-based photovoltaic supply chain, enabling high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles, and a miniaturised semiconductor chip packaging platform for emerging applications in power electronics and 5G communications, consortium member CSAC said.

An increasingly politicised technology

Semiconductors come in multiple forms with some comprising single elements such as silicon or germanium while others are compounds such as gallium nitrite or silicon carbide. As the desired applications evolve, so too does the science behind them, with the 5G revolution in particular ushering in a fresh wave of considerations about how different types of semiconductor function.

As semiconductors become increasingly woven into technological advances for multiple industries, concerns have escalated about vulnerabilities in the metals supply chains needed to manufacture them, and they have become caught in political crosshairs.

The US this year increased its restrictions on companies using components produced in the US to manufacture chips for China's Huawei, prompting a number of Chinese companies to now accelerate investment in their own semiconductor development and secure supply.

Meanwhile, the US Defense Department has moved to secure access to domestic supplies of semiconductors and satellite solar panels, particularly pertinent amid the Covid-19 pandemic's disruption of international supply logistics. Under the US Defense Production Act, the department has signed supply contracts with a US subsidiary of Canada-based electronic materials producer 5N Plus and US-based SolAero Technologies.

And two bills were introduced in the US Congress last month with the aim of increasing federal investment in semiconductor research and technology development, introducing incentives to base manufacturing facilities in the US and provide more tax credits for investment in the sector.

"As our economy shifts away from the long-standing model of industrialism coupled with the uncertainty of a global pandemic, we now more than ever need the federal government to continue its support of game-changing industries like semiconductors and microelectronics," Mohawk Valley EDGE president Steven DiMeo, said of one of the bills.

CASC estimates that overall the compound semiconductor market is valued at around $30bn. Some analysts estimate that the global market for compound semiconductors will reach $125bn by 2025, with other analysts estimating that the global market for compound semiconductors will grow to more than $300bn by 2030 — three times their projected growth rates for silicon alone, CSAC said.

French semiconductor materials producer Soitec estimates that global demand for silicon carbide wafers alone — a type of semiconductor being targeted at the electric vehicle sector in particular — will increase tenfold by 2030.

By Ellie Saklatvala