Ideaded locates the largest chip cleanroom in Southern Europe in Viladecans

The company Ideaded has invested 12 million euros in the construction of a clean room destined for the development, testing, and production of short series of microchips. According to the Catalan company, it will be the largest private facility of its kind in Southern Europe, with a total surface area of 500 square meters. It is expected to become operational in early 2023 and will involve the hiring of 100 highly qualified workers.

Ideaded, led by Eduard Puig, began the research and development (R&D) process to produce its own microchips since its foundation. The company focuses on the production of chips for the Internet of Things (IoT) and is closing agreements with companies in sectors such as telecommunications, retail, and automotive. The semiconductors it has developed are characterized by not using silicon, as most companies in the sector do, and are based on other organic materials, thus reducing production costs.

The new space, with a capacity to produce between 5 and 20 million units daily, is located at the company's headquarters in Viladecans, with a total surface area of 7,000 square meters, distributed between offices and production and manufacturing spaces. To launch it, the Generalitat has granted it a loan of six million euros through Avançsa and the Institut Català de Finances (ICF), half of the investment, as well as aid of more than 217,000 euros from the reindustrialization line of the Direcció General d'Indústria.

In the future, the company plans to expand the clean room to 2,500 square meters. This will increase the investment to 200 million euros and create 400 more jobs.

Ideaded was created in 2015 in Girona. As it grew, it initially moved to L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, on Avenida Carrilet, until almost a year ago it acquired its current facilities in Viladecans, on Calle de la Tecnologia.

Drip of projects in the chip sector

The investment by Ideaded, with a local seal, joins those recently announced by multinationals such as Intel and Cisco. In Intel's case, the company will install in the city a pioneering laboratory that will boost high-performance computing at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - National Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), framed within a plan to invest up to 80,000 million euros in Europe during this decade to develop the semiconductor value chain. On the other hand, Cisco has chosen the Catalan capital to locate the first next-generation chip design center it will have in all of Europe. It will initially be located in the innovation center that the multinational already has in the Catalan capital, in the old Ca l'Alier factory.

Likewise, the American company MPS will launch its main R&D center in Europe and will do so by investing 12 million euros in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. In parallel, MPS plans to build a 3,000 square meter laboratory that will be used to test semiconductors for electric vehicles, chargers, computers, mobile phones, or data centers.