Even though the Nijmegen chip manufacturer Nexperia has a Chinese owner, the company is still allowed to take over the Delft chip company Nowi. This takeover, announced in November 2022, can continue because the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK) sees no reason for further research.
Acquisitions of chip companies are very sensitive due to the geopolitical tensions between the US and China. The Netherlands is being drawn into the battle between the superpowers, for example in the form of restrictions on exports to China for chip machine makers ASML and ASM. In addition, the Netherlands wants to better protect its own high-tech knowledge.
Since September 2023, the Vifo law in force (safety test for investments, mergers and acquisitions). This law gives the government the opportunity to roll back foreign investments in sensitive technology. This must prevent countries such as China from acquiring knowledge through investments that could endanger the economic or national security of the Netherlands. The law applies retroactively from September 2020.
In the past, EZK itself had to intervene with chip manufacturers such as Smart Photonics and Lionix. And in 2018, at the request of the Pentagon, the ministry called in ASML’s help to prevent technology from Mapper, another Delft high-tech company, from disappearing to China.
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According to outgoing Minister Micky Adriaansens of Economic Affairs and Climate (VVD), the Nowi takeover does not need to be examined retroactively. In a Letter to Parliament Adriaansens wrote on Monday that such studies for the technological sector are limited to “those companies that are active in the field of dual use technology or military equipment”. That is not the case with Nowi, according to EZK.
The Delft startup, founded in 2016, designs chips that ‘harvest’ energy from ambient light. They are in fact mini solar panels, packaged in the form of a semiconductor. That way you can avoid using batteries Reduce in small gadgets and industrial applications, such as wireless sensors or electronic price tags in the supermarket.
Relieved
It is not known how much Nexperia paid for Nowi. Charles Smit, CEO of Nexperia, responded relieved on EZK’s decision: “We have always said that the technology of Nowi and Nexperia cannot do any harm.”
Nexperia is located in Nijmegen and supplies relatively simple chips and standard products, ingredients for electronics. This involves more than a hundred billion parts per year. Nexperia came into Chinese hands when electronics manufacturer Wingtech from Shanghai took over this former division of NXP in 2019.
Some of Wingtech’s shareholders have tyres with the Chinese state. That got in the way of another acquisition that Nexperia tried to make: it bought the British Newport Wafer Fab in 2021, but was forced to sell that factory again from the hand to do.