Siemens Healthineers invests € 80 million in new semiconductor factory
Siemens Healthineers says that the company is building a new factory in Forchheim, Germany for the cultivation of crystals for semiconductor production.
With a total investment of EUR 80 million, the new factory is expected to create 100 new jobs once completed. The company says that the existing production facility in Japan is reaching its capacity limits.
The crystals are used as detector material for the latest generation of CT scanners. By using the crystals as a semiconductor material, photon-counting devices such as Naeotom Alpha can produce sharper images with reduced X-ray dose.
The factory – which will have a usable area of over 9,000 square metres – is scheduled to go into operation in 2026. This is Siemens Healthineers second major investment in the Forchheim site within three years. Since 2019, the company has invested a total of around EUR 500 million in the expansion of the site.
"We made a conscious decision in favour of the Forchheim site. Here we are building the world's first photon-counting CT scanner Naeotom Alpha, whose demand has increased enormously since its market launch in 2021 due to its ts high-resolution imaging. In addition to a very good infrastructure, the region also offers many incentives for skilled workers," says André Hartung, Head of Diagnostic Imaging at Siemens Healthineers, in a press release.
The new building is intended to significantly increase the production capacity for crystals, prevent supply bottlenecks and shorten construction times. Research and development for the highly complex production of crystals is also to be expanded.
