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Wiyo designs semiconductors, which are needed to prevent global collapse and global rollback.
Since the pandemic, semiconductors have become part of the common imagination, as the production crisis has shown the alarming effects that their absence could have. However, there is still a great deal of ignorance about what they are, how they work and the uses to which they can be put.
Semiconductors
First of all, it is important to note that, for the time being, all chips are semiconductors. They differ among other things in their size, defined according to their power requirement and the space they can occupy within the hardware they make up. The most talked-about from a few years ago until now are microchips, with a size of 10 -6; and nanochips, 10 -9, which, to get an idea, would be the equivalent of a particle of ground pepper (0.3mm2). This makes them particularly efficient and attractive components when it comes to integrating any hardware, which is why their use in any technology is becoming more and more common.
Regarding their development: different design tools and simulation licenses are used, where digital, analogue or mixed designs are run and, once produced, they always need power to work, which can come from different active or passive sources.
Their functionality, however, is much more extensive than is probably realised and seems to be limited exclusively to the automotive and high-tech sectors. Nowadays, chips are necessary in absolutely all areas of our lives, from electricity, to computers, mobile phones, household appliances or video games, and even for technological elements related to the health sector, which can include both basic monitoring equipment and the most sophisticated robots currently used to perform neurological surgeries, which require extreme precision and dexterity. Their absence would mean an abysmal delay in all sectors that affect the daily life of the entire population and would make it impossible for human beings to be able to live as they are accustomed to doing. In other words, it would lead to regression and global collapse.
The semiconductor industry and its importance in Europe
However, the manufacture of this type of chips is still very limited to just a few countries capable of developing them and four countries share the bulk of production, with Taiwan at the head, followed by Korea, the United States and Israel, as well as China, which also has a large industry, but mostly for domestic consumption. Semiconductor manufacturing requires a large amount of resources that few powers are willing or able to provide.
Moreover, it is necessary to understand the dichotomy that arises from the fact that it is a very complex and specialised industry, but with the aim of offering simple and efficient solutions to guarantee a better quality of life, through objects or elements that are easy for everyone to use.
The production of semiconductors requires two fundamental parts: fabless companies, responsible for creating the entire process of functionality of the technological component through their designs, and foundries, responsible for manufacturing the semiconductor wafers that go on to become the micro and nanochips.
Europe has some of the main fabless fabs in the market that provide unique designs and without which chip manufacturing could not be carried out. In fact, in Spain alone there are four companies dedicated to this work, which are the members of the first Semiconductor Industry Association. In addition, of course, to the exceptional work being carried out in the clean rooms of our universities and research centres, which is often overlooked when talking about the state of the industry.
Now, the European Union seems to be considering the option of allowing public aid to boost chip production. However, the problem remains that we in Europe do not have the factories to produce them, and this continues to make us dependent and vulnerable to the increasing global need for digitisation, especially post-Covid.
