The European Commission has approved €659 million in German state aid to support four new semiconductor facilities in Germany.
Germany will provide direct grants of €353 million to SME Element 3-5 GmbH for a site in Baesweiler, North Rhine-Westphalia, €214 million to Vishay Siliconix Itzehoe GmbH for a facility in Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein, €74.4 million to KLA-Tencor MIE GmbH for a facility in Weilburg, Hesse, and €17.9 million to KETEK GmbH for a facility in Munich, Bavaria, the Commission informed on Tuesday.
Element 3-5’s project will manufacture silicon carbide epi-wafers — silicon carbide wafers with a thin, high-quality layer added on top — for use in sectors including automotive, industrial, telecommunications and energy.
Vishay’s project will expand capacity at its existing Itzehoe site to produce next-generation Power MOSFETs, which are electronic components used to switch or control high voltages and currents in power circuits.
KLA’s project will manufacture advanced optical overlay and film metrology equipment at its existing Weilburg site, the Commission added, describing the tools as being used for process and quality control in semiconductor manufacturing.
KETEK’s project will build production lines for Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs) and Graphene Radiation Entry Windows (GREW), which it said are components used in SDD detectors for industrial sorting and recycling systems.
How the approval fits EU rules
The aid was assessed under EU state aid rules and the European Chips Act, and the Commission said the facilities were “first-of-a-kind” in Europe.
Germany published a call for proposals for innovative investment projects in the European semiconductor value chain in November 2024, and the approvals relate to the eighth and ninth projects pre-selected under that process.
The Commission proposed “Chips Act 2.0” on 3 June 2026, introducing measures to support chip production in the EU.
“Today’s approval of Germany’s support for four new projects in the semiconductor value chain shows Europe is turning the ambitions of the EU Chips Act into action,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition.
