Bosch intensifies semiconductor production in Reutlingen

With an investment of more than a quarter billion euros by 2025, Bosch plans to further expand its semiconductor manufacturing in Reutlingen. These measures are also intended to help address the ongoing global semiconductor shortage. A new building section with an additional approximately 3,600 square meters of clean room space is being constructed at the existing site. Starting in 2025, semiconductors will be manufactured there based on technologies already established in Reutlingen. Additionally, Bosch is expanding an existing energy supply center. To connect the existing and new production spaces, another building for media supply is planned. This prepares Bosch for the steadily growing demand for chips for applications in mobility and the Internet of Things. Production in the new spaces is set to begin in 2025.

Global Investments

In October 2021, Bosch announced that it would invest more than 400 million euros in the expansion of semiconductor sites in Dresden, Reutlingen, and Penang, Malaysia, in 2022 alone. Approximately 50 million euros of this amount will go into the semiconductor plant in Reutlingen. For Reutlingen, Bosch had also announced an investment of 150 million euros from 2021 to 2023 for additional clean room spaces in existing buildings. The now planned expansion of the site with a new building section for manufacturing is an additional measure. Overall, the clean room area in Reutlingen is to be expanded from the current approximately 35,000 square meters to more than 44,000 square meters by the end of 2025.

State-of-the-Art Semiconductor Manufacturing

In Reutlingen, Bosch operates semiconductor factories based on 150- and 200-mm technology. In Dresden, the company manufactures semiconductor chips on wafers with a diameter of 300 mm. All production facilities have a state-of-the-art approach in data-driven manufacturing control.

Thanks to the combination of networking and artificial intelligence methods, Bosch lays the foundation for data-driven, continuous improvement in production and thus for ever-better chips. (Markus Heyn, Managing Director of Robert Bosch GmbH and Chairman of the Mobility Solutions division)

An example is the development of software for automated defect classification. Additionally, Bosch is optimizing material flow with the help of artificial intelligence.

Growing Demand for Semiconductors

Bosch has been developing and manufacturing semiconductors for more than 60 years, in Reutlingen for more than 50 years – both for automotive applications and the consumer sector. The chips manufactured include application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS sensors), and power semiconductors. The additional expansion of the site is mainly intended to meet the growing demand for MEMS for the automotive and consumer sectors as well as silicon carbide power semiconductors.

Already today, Bosch is a leading chip manufacturer for vehicles. We want to consistently expand this position. (Heyn)

This also includes the development and manufacturing of chips made from silicon carbide, whose mass production Bosch began in December 2021. In electromobility, chips made from this innovative material will play an increasingly important role in the future. Currently, Bosch is the only automotive supplier worldwide that manufactures silicon carbide power semiconductors in-house.

Today, around 8,000 employees work at the Reutlingen site in the development and manufacturing of semiconductors and control units, as well as in administration and the eBike Systems business unit.