On March 6, according to foreign media Politico, the world's leading microelectronics research center, Belgium-based IMEC (Belgian Microelectronics Research Center), is cutting off cooperation with China.
According to the report, Belgium's Flanders Regional Economic Agency, which oversees IMEC, said that IMEC has "significantly reduced" its partnership with China. The research center will continue to phase out ongoing obligations for more mature technologies.
At present, European countries** are closely monitoring the links of their chip companies with China - mainly under pressure from the United States**, which aims to cut off China's access to advanced chips and related technologies.
Over the past few decades, the chip chain has been split into highly specialized companies that spread across the globe. Its rapid innovation relies on global innovation**.
Since its inception in 1984, imec has carefully shaped a neutral image where researchers, chipmakers, and other companies from around the world can work together to advance the next generation of chips.
As a world-renowned independent public R&D platform, IMEC is a benchmark R&D institution in the semiconductor industry, with the world's advanced chip R&D technology and process, and is as famous as Intel and IBM in the United States, and has extensive cooperation with global semiconductor industry chain giants including Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Qualcomm, and ARM.
On the morning of October 18, 2018, Prime Minister **, accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Belgium, Pieters, visited IMEC.
And in an interview last month, IMEC CEO Luc van den Hove praised his center as "the Switzerland of semiconductors," where all the major players in the industry can come together. This stance has led imec to high-profile past collaborations with Chinese companies such as SMIC and Huawei. Two of IMEC's spin-offs later even merged into Huawei, one in 2011 under the name M4S and the other in 2013 under the name Caliopa. In 2015, imec partnered with SMIC and Huawei to establish a joint venture.
Asked about partnerships with Chinese companies, imec said in a statement that based on U.S. export policies and the fact that imec has a large number of partners in the U.S., the center "has a strong, voluntary policy on cooperation with Chinese companies and universities, and our policy will be further fine-tuned in line with global geopolitical developments."
The Flemish region provides subsidies for IMEC (the amount of the subsidy in 2022 is 1.).3.4 billion euros) and through the representation of the Board of Directors, it has a great influence on the functioning of the center.
In November, when asked whether imec should be cautious about China, Jo Brouns, Belgium's economic director for Flanders, said the center would have to "pay special attention to like-minded countries," with the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all being like-minded partners with the West and being important strongholds for chips. Brauns agrees that something is changing in this regard.
The change in IMEC's attitude is set against the backdrop of a-for-tat chip war between China and the United States, with Europe caught in the middle. Last year, the United States pressured the Netherlands to introduce new export control measures, restricting the export of ASML, a leading manufacturer of chip manufacturing equipment, to China. ASML is the world's largest lithography machine manufacturer and the world's only EUV lithography machine manufacturer, and the United States believes that the company is the best bottleneck to cut off China's access to advanced chips.
IMEC is a long-standing partner of ASML. In June last year, they signed an agreement to cooperate in the construction of a test line with state-of-the-art technology at IMEC's headquarters in Leuven.
So far, despite its close ties to ASML, Belgium** has been silent about IMEC's position in the overall geopolitical contest. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said in an interview during a visit to China in January: "IMEC will continue to do business with China, but in some areas it needs to be more careful." ”
Editor: Xinzhixun-Lin Zi **politicoprocom