Christian Koitzsch to head TSMC's European operation
Christian Koitzsch has left Bosch to become the president of TSMC's under-construction subsidiary in Dresden, Germany.
This is a kind of sideways move for Koitzsch since Bosch is one of the partners in the JV. Along with Infineon and NXP, Bosch is preparing to acquire 10% of the shares in European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), a JV established by TSMC.
ESMC was first announced last August as a 300mm fab to support the future capacity needs of the automotive and industrial sectors. The planned fab will have a monthly production capacity of 40,000 300mm (12-inch) wafers using TSMC’s 28/22 nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12 nanometer FinFET process technology. The fab is expected to create about 2,000 jobs.
There was some uncertainty around the project when the German cartel office investigated the extent to which the three European companies' participation in the fab was likely to prevent other customers from accessing semiconductor chips. But regulators gave the all-clear in November.
In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Koitzsch was confirmed in his new role. He will now supervise the building of the wafer fab in Dresden, which is scheduled to break ground on the fab in the second half of this year. Mass production is slated to begin at the end of 2027.
