> these are pretty low-tech chips only for industrial uses

I don't like this framing.

These aren't logic ICs but that doesn't mean they are useless or "easy".

Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.

In fact, compound semiconductors and power electronics is one segment where Europe's China dependency is extremely high, as they have significant uses from automotive to PLCs to weapons systems, and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].

These are dual use technologies and a major reason why both the US and China heavily invested in compound semiconductor capacity in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

Edit: can't reply

> In 2024 Belgium closed its only semi fab, which had recently pivoted to GaN

THEMA Foundries is working in photonics, not GaNs [2]. The GaN initiative (BelGaN) failed and the only two buyers interested in buying out the property for GaN fabrication were a Chinese and Indian player [2].

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/eu-firms-brace-more-shut...

[1] - https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3351292/...

[2] - https://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2025/apr/belg...

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chicken-stew 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In 2024 Belgium closed its only semi fab, which had recently pivoted to GaN.

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joe_mamba an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>Heck, the only countries with Gallium Nitride fabrication capabilities and knowhow are the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and India.

So basically all major industrial powers? In which case I don't get the use of the world "only" here, as if the EU, the richest block in the world, deserve praise for doing something countries a lot less wealthier are doing.

> and China has already begun embargoing the EU's access to rare earth elements [0] and has begun enforcing sanctions against the EU's aerospace and UAV industry [1].

The way it's framed it sounds like China is some evil bad guy for doing that but that's standard practice that the EU and US also do. The EU also restricts ASML EUV machines to China and sanctions Chinese tech in their defense sector. Standard stuff.

	▲	alephnerd an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> So basically all major industrial powers ASEAN doesn't have the capacity yet, but this is changing in 3-5 years as Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam have gotten IP transfers from European, Korean and Japanese technology partners. Neither does the rest of the Europe excluding an Ireland-UK-UAE JV called ChipX (but the team is largely located in the US, UAE, Malaysia, and Japan) and the portion of STMicro in France that was part of state-owned Thomson Semiconducteurs before it was privatized. Neither do any of the major industrial states in the Americas like Canada, Mexico, or Brazil. > that's standard practice that the EU and US also do My point is that states need to build domestic capacity where possible. And the EU is not a state. France continued to protect their GaN fabrication IP closely (not even sharing it with Italy despite STMicro being a French-Italian JV), and same with Germany to a certain extent.