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28 EE|Times EUROPE

electronica 2020 CEO Roundtable: Outlook Is Good

terms of subsidies and grants. Europe can
think more about how to do R&D programs.
In China, we see a certain amount of product
stay in China, with others exported. Neverthe-
less, China will remain an important market.
Competing with local subsidized companies
in China will not be successful. With the
acquisition of Cypress, we will establish a
better presence in the U.S. This will help
better balance our business. We also want to
grow our market in Japan, the U.S, and Korea.
We cannot depend on growth in China as a
long-term formula for success.
Sievers: We always monitor all the risks
across the supply chain. With regard to your
question about TSMC, it is a global company.
Silicon carbide is a key part of ST’s strategy (Source: STMicroelectronics) If there is more tension between China and
Taiwan, there will be ways to deal with that.
market. So we are building a plan for Q4 next ban on Huawei. To be very specific, in our We have to constantly adjust to address the
year, and the plan on which we are working is case, it does impact our sales to Huawei in Q4 various changes.
showing some growth in 2021. to zero, and I believe that others will also be Kegel: We don’t think Covid-19 will be our
impacted. However, market forces will come largest problem in the coming years. Maybe
U.S.-CHINA TENSIONS AND TRADE DEALS into play. Demand for mobile phones won’t the U.S.-China tension could be more worry-
Despite the U.S. election result, there may be go away, so competitors to Huawei will still be ing. It’s quite possible that with the new [U.S.]
some fundamental aspects of the U.S.-China producing mobile phones, and we will still be administration, there may be more talking.
tensions that will persist, according to the CEOs, able to supply those competitors. But the root cause of the tension will stay, and
who discussed the impact on their businesses Kegel: The peaceful world of multilateral it will depend on whether they can resolve
and what can be done going forward. global trade is really in danger. Additional things in a diplomatic way.
Ploss: There have always been some tariffs and costs will lead to a loss of busi-
elements of political intervention in the ness for small and medium-sized companies. ON ACQUISITIONS AND MEGA-DEALS
semiconductor industry, but the race for 5G, For us, 50% of what we do is still inside What are the drivers behind the industry’s
artificial intelligence, and compute capabil- Europe, but the other 50% is outside, so this mega-deals and acquisitions, such as Nvidia
ity leadership have driven this even more will impact us. We are asking EU govern- and Arm? ST’s CEO posited an answer.
in recent times. From our point of view, the ments to help companies here. For example, Chery: Behind the mega-deals, there is
semiconductor industry has evolved well we don’t have to grant free access to the EU always a strategy. With Nvidia, it is around AI
in addressing the challenges. We have market to everyone without something in in the cloud and edge: If you want to attack
already seen the value chain significantly return. We need to have ways of maintaining this market successfully, having control of
changing and moving around. As an industry, multilateral trade. key enablers is important. For ST, a recent
we need to avoid being dependent on sin- Chery: Of course, the Chinese authorities example is our acquisition in silicon carbide.
gle-source suppliers. The tech war is on, want a better balance [in terms of capabilities, If you want to become a leader in your market,
and we in Europe have to get our act technology, and so on]. But there is no place scale is important.
together and strengthen our position both for economies to be siloed, and we have to
locally and globally. fight against the decoupling of the economy; E-MOBILITY MARKET OPPORTUNITY
Sievers: I agree with Reinhard. The trade otherwise, it will cut innovation. With a question targeted specifically for Ploss,
tensions are driving us backward in globaliza- Ploss: What we see is that there is uneven the moderator asked whether e-mobility was the
tion. Technology has potential to do good for competition, not a level playing field, in biggest opportunity for Infineon.
the world, and going backward in globaliza-
tion will drift us a bit further away in terms of
making the advances we would have expected.
From a supply chain perspective, our supply
chains are quite robust, so we don’t need to
make too many changes. But we need to be
more thoughtful about the IP supply chain,
which is what really gets into the wheels of
those trade tensions. I hope that the U.S.
election results mean things will get more
diplomatic. And Europe needs to leverage a
bit more as a joint union, especially with the
continued U.S.-China tensions.
We have a very deep vertical semiconductor
supply chain in Europe, which provides us
with massive value in Europe, and we need to
leverage that a bit more. The one area [that
brought] the most massive change was the E-mobility opportunity (Source: Infineon Technologies)

DECEMBER 2020 | www.eetimes.eu