Silicon Box to build €3.2 billion Italian chiplet factory

Business news | March 11, 2024

By Peter Clarke

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Singapore startup Silicon Box Pte. Ltd. will spend €3.2 billion (about US$3.5 billion) building a chiplet packaging factory in northern Italy, newswires quote Industry Minister Adolfo Urso saying Monday morning.

The plant is expected to create 1,600 jobs when operating at full capacity.

The minister did not expound on how large a subsidy the authorities would provide or where the money would come from. Nor was the location of the plant given.

“Recent global upheavals highlight the need to build a more resilient supply chain for semiconductors in Europe,” Urso is quoted saying by Bloomberg and Reuters.

Silicon Box instead of Intel

In 2023 Italy lost out on being the location for an Intel advanced packaging plant (see Intel close to deciding on Italy chiplet assembly plant – report). The decision went to Poland (see Intel to open $4.6 billion assembly and test plant in Poland) partly due to proximity to a planned Intel wafer complex in Magdeburg.

Silicon Box was founded in 2021 by the founders of chip company Marvell – Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai – and experienced chip packaging executive Byung Joon (BJ) Han. The company recently closed a US$200 million Series B funding round that valued the startup at over US$1 billion (see Singapore chiplet factory already shipping, raises US$200 million).

Strategic investors in Silicon Box include, Hillhouse Capital, Lam Research, Tata Electronics; TDK and UMC.

Silicon Box opened its 750,000 square-foot chiplet facility in Tampines, Singapore in July 2023 and started shipping to early-access customers in October 2023.