Siltronic plans to invest €1.1 billion in 2022

The company says in a press release that strong demand and persistently high investment in digitisation as well as catch-up effects from 2020 led to a significant increase in wafer area sold.

“Strong volume growth led to fully utilized factories and excellent sales and earnings in 2021. To support long-term demand growth, we started construction of our new 300 mm fab in Singapore in 2021 – the largest investment in Siltronic's history,” says Dr. Christoph von Plotho, CEO of Siltronic AG, in the press release. “As the planned merger with GlobalWafers was unfortunately not completed due to a lack of regulatory approvals, we will remain an independent company. After an excellent year, Siltronic is looking ahead to a successful future.”

Full year EBITDA amounted to EUR 466.4 million, 40.5% higher than in the previous year of EUR 332.0 million. Again, the main reasons are said to be the significant increase in wafer area sold and reduced manufacturing costs per wafer area. Result for the period increased from EUR 186.8 million to EUR 289.6 million.

In 2021, Siltronic says that it invested EUR 425.6 million in property, plant and equipment and intangible assets. This also includes investments in epitaxy capacities, capabilities – equipment and production processes for future technical specifications – the expansion of the crystal pulling hall in Freiberg and the construction of the new 300 mm factory in Singapore, which Evertiq has reported on previously.

The construction of the new factory in Singapore will be financed to a large extent by existing liquidity, future cash flows and prepayments from important customers. The company says that there will be no capital increase in 2022.

The company says that it plans to invest around EUR 1.1 billion in 2022. Around two thirds of this will go into the construction of the new factory in Singapore. Other areas will be the expansion of the crystal pulling hall and epitaxy capacity in Freiberg, as well as measures to improve capability for new design rules.

"Geopolitical issues, persistent disruptions in global supply chains, and the further development of the Corona pandemic continue to present uncertainties, which are difficult to forecast in terms of their economic impact. However, looking at the continuing megatrends in the semiconductor industry, we expect demand for silicon wafers to rise in the medium and long term, although growth may be subject to fluctuations. For 2022, we expect demand to stay strong and we plan for high production utilization," von Plotho says.