A brand new UK-Bulgaria partnership is boosting semiconductor innovation, funding, and abilities throughout the tech sector.
The collaboration is creating alternatives for innovation, funding, and abilities improvement, strengthening bilateral ties and supporting Bulgaria’s efforts to place itself as a aggressive participant in Europe’s semiconductor innovation panorama.
Underneath the UK-Bulgaria Strategic Partnership, the Science and Expertise Community (STN) and Division for Enterprise and Commerce (DBT) have linked UK experience with Bulgaria’s ambitions beneath the EU Chips Act 2023 and its fast-growing auto electronics sector.
The significance of semiconductors in a rising digital world
Semiconductors underpin every thing – from smartphones to electrical autos and renewable vitality techniques.
Their means to behave as switches and amplifiers permits for miniaturisation, elevated energy, and decrease prices, driving technological progress throughout almost each business.
Safe and numerous provide chains are important for financial resilience and technological management.
Bulgaria as a rising hub for semiconductor innovation
Bulgaria is a gateway to Jap markets and a key manufacturing hub in Southeast Europe.
The nation now produces about 80% of sensors utilized in European automobiles and hosts state-of-the-art analysis and improvement centres and good factories.
The electronics sector is projected to develop from roughly €2.3bn in 2023 to €2.7bn by 2028, representing a compound annual development charge of two.9%, making Bulgaria a key hub for semiconductor innovation.
Bulgaria’s automotive business contains round 380 corporations using over 80,000 individuals and contributes greater than 10% to Bulgaria’s GDP, making it a key driver of financial development.
The €1bn EU-backed analysis and improvement push and EU Chips Act 2023 ambitions create robust partnership potential. All these elements showcase Bulgaria as an vital hub within the rising European semiconductor provide chain and chip manufacturing.
Increasing technological abilities in Bulgaria
The following step within the UK-Bulgaria partnership is to ascertain a inexperienced silicon carbide wafer manufacturing facility in Bulgaria, which is already growing exports value £10.5m to the UK.
By linking UK compound semiconductor innovation with Bulgaria’s manufacturing capability, STN has helped lay the inspiration for longer-term collaboration in analysis and improvement and for enterprise funding.
By doing so, partnerships can:
- Diversify manufacturing with Europe, enhancing provide chain safety and mitigating geopolitical dangers
- Co-located analysis and improvement hubs and factories create an ecosystem for speedy prototyping and commercialisation of next-generation supplies like silicon carbide.
- Joint coaching programmes and tutorial exchanges will assist shut the abilities hole in a sector going through world shortages.
- Assist facilitate supportive coverage frameworks that may advance worldwide partnerships.
The Science and Technology Network (STN) has served as a trusted bridge between authorities, academia, and business within the UK and Bulgaria – strengthening mutual understanding and unlocking alternatives for collaboration in semiconductor innovation.
