The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a €2 billion Italian measure to support STMicroelectronics (‘ST’) in the construction and operation of an integrated chip manufacturing plant for Silicon Carbide (‘SiC’) power devices in Catania, Sicily. The measure will strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and digital sovereignty in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act Communication. The measure will also contribute to achieving the digital and green transitions.
The Italian measure
Italy notified the Commission of its plan to support ST’s Catania Campus project to build and operate an integrated chip manufacturing plant for SiC power devices. SiC is a compound material used to manufacture wafers that serve as a base for specific microchips used in high-performance power devices, such as in electric vehicles, fast-charging stations, renewable energies and other industrial applications. The integrated plant will cover all the manufacturing steps from the raw material to the finished devices, namely power transistors and power modules.
The aid will take the form of an approximately €2 billion direct grant to ST to support its investment worth €5 billion in total. The project will enable the development of a large-scale manufacturing facility for high performance SiC chips, based on 200mm diameter wafers that will be processed into modules and other devices used for instance by the automotive industry, in Europe and globally. The facility is planned to be operating at full capacity in 2032.