Bosch has been busy expanding its manufacturing prowess and that effort continued this week with the opening of a new chip test center for semiconductors and sensors located in Penang, Malaysia.
The move follows the company’s acquisition of TSI Semiconductors, a California foundry that Bosch will use to manufacture silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors on 200 mm wafers. Previously, Bosch made plans to expand its Reutlingen, Germany, location that also produces 200 mm wafers.
Additionally, Bosch invested $1.2 billion in the Dresden fab last year and then announced it would further expand the Dresden fab to the tune of an additional $463 million. This expansion would be dedicated to ramping up production at the fab sooner than expected.
Bosch said the investment in the Penang, Malaysian test center will initially be $71.3 million and a further $313.6 million by the middle of the next decade. The center will create additional manufacturing for semiconductors with some 18,000 square meters for the facility that includes clean rooms, office space and laboratories.
The center will be built on 100,000 square meters of land and by the next decade employ up to a total of 4,200 semiconductor works, which will become Bosch’s biggest location in Southeast Asia.
Currently, Bosch’s front-end manufacturing is performed by fabs in Reutlingen and Dresden, Germany. Back-end semiconductors are currently tested in Reutlingen as well as Suzhou, China, and Hatvan, Hungary. The Malaysian plant will join these facilities and when fully connected the plant will be one of the most advanced semiconductor test centers in Southeast Asia, Bosch said.
Semiconductor manufacturing can basically be divided into two sections: frontend manufacturing and backend manufacturing. For the latter, Malaysia is an important hub in the global semiconductor supply chain. The country is estimated to cover around 13% of global backend manufacturing. According to official figures, in recent years the state of Penang has generated more than 5% of worldwide semiconductor revenue.
