The money is to be invested in new space and the design of the clean room required for production. Bosch is thus preparing itself for the constantly growing demand for chips for applications in mobility and the Internet of Things. "We are systematically expanding our production capacities for semiconductors in Reutlingen. This will strengthen our competitiveness. We are investing for our customers and against the global semiconductor supply crisis," says Dr. Stefan Hartung, Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch GmbH. A new building section with an additional 3,600 square meters of ultra-modern cleanroom space is being constructed at the site. Semiconductors based on the technologies already established in Reutlingen are to be manufactured there from 2025. Bosch is also expanding an existing energy supply center. An additional building for media supply is planned to connect the existing and new production areas. Production in the new space is scheduled to begin in 2025.

In October 2021, Bosch announced that it would be investing more than 400 million euros in the expansion of its semiconductor sites in Dresden, Reutlingen and Penang, Malaysia, in 2022 alone. Around 50 million euros of this will flow into the semiconductor plant in Reutlingen. For Reutlingen, Bosch had already announced plans to invest a total of 150 million euros in additional cleanroom space in existing buildings between 2021 and 2023. The planned expansion of the site with a new building section for production will add to this. In total, the cleanroom area in Reutlingen is to be expanded from the current 35,000 square meters to more than 44,000 square meters by the end of 2025.

State-of-the-art semiconductor production

In Reutlingen, Bosch operates semiconductor factories based on 150 and 200 millimeter technology. In Dresden, the company manufactures semiconductor chips on wafers with a diameter of 300 millimeters. What all the production factories have in common is an ultra-modern approach to data-based production control. "Thanks to the combination of connectivity and artificial intelligence methods, Bosch is creating the basis for data-driven, continuous improvement in production and thus for ever better chips," says Markus Heyn, member of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector. One example is the development of software for automated defect classification. Bosch is also optimizing the material flow with the help of artificial intelligence. The ultra-modern manufacturing environment in Reutlingen is intended to secure the future of the location and thus jobs with a high degree of automation.

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 for the consumer sector. The chips produced include application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS sensors) and power semiconductors. The additional expansion of the site is primarily intended to meet the growing demand for MEMS for the automotive and consumer sectors as well as for silicon carbide power semiconductors. "Bosch is already a leading chip manufacturer for vehicles. We want to systematically expand this position," says Heyn. This also includes the development and production of silicon carbide chips, for which Bosch began series production in December 2021. Chips made from this innovative material will play an increasingly important role in electromobility in the future. Bosch is currently the only automotive supplier in the world that manufactures power semiconductors from silicon carbide itself.

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