Bosch opens its fabs as mature-node chip capacity changes hands

Bosch carves out a chip division

Bosch said the new unit, called Semiconductors, will start in January 2028. It will remain part of Bosch, not a separate company. The chip business currently sits inside Mobility Electronics. That unit will keep making electronic control units for vehicles.

Bosch plans to open its manufacturing facilities to outside clients. It will expand its foundry business. It named robotics, factory automation, AI data centres, phones and wearables as target markets. No customer names are public. Neither Bosch nor its rivals have said how much of the new capacity already has commitments.

The target is around €5bn in annual semiconductor revenue by 2030. Bosch already runs about 40 chip sites worldwide. It has invested roughly €3bn in its Dresden and Reutlingen wafer plants. It is spending around $2bn to convert its Roseville, California facility to silicon carbide.

Erik Rein heads Bosch's chip business. He said: "With the founding of a dedicated unit, we are opening a new chapter in our more than 60-year semiconductor history".

The squeeze is in the old nodes

Samsung is accelerating cuts to its 8-inch mature-node production, according to a TrendForce bulletin dated 19 October 2026. It is also preparing price increases across its lineup heading into 2027. TrendForce expects 8-inch capacity to shrink through the first half of 2027.

Prices are already moving. Nexchip raised foundry fees by 10% from June 2026. Prices on some nodes at SMIC and HuaHong have climbed by roughly 10%.

HuaHong's capacity utilisation reached 102.8% in the second quarter of 2026, above nominal full capacity. SMIC's second-quarter profit more than tripled to $479.2m on revenue of over $3bn. A Samil PwC report published on 26 October said Chinese competition would heat up first in conventional memory, mature-node manufacturing, and packaging and testing. It urged South Korean chipmakers to defend profitability in commodity memory.

China adds wafers as Samsung walks away

SMIC is adding roughly 40,000 12-inch equivalent wafers of monthly capacity by the end of 2026. That comes on top of about 50,000 12-inch wafers it added in 2025. Nexchip is spending CNY 35.5bn. Nexchip launched its Phase IV project in January 2026. It targets a 12-inch line with 55,000 wafers a month. The line will support 40nm and 28nm logic, CMOS image sensors and OLED driver processes.

Wafer output at SMIC "significantly exceeded initial forecasts", co-CEO Zhao Haijun said. The company is looking at adding equipment to factories that still have open floor space, rather than building from scratch.

Capacity is shifting toward Chinese foundries. Samsung is redirecting fab space toward advanced packaging and logic for AI accelerators.

India's opening is packaging, not fabs

Sahasra Semiconductors runs a packaging plant in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan. It built the plant with an investment of more than ₹1.5bn, about $15.8m, according to a May 2026 government announcement. It spans 5,295 square metres and has a stated annual capacity of 60 million units, roughly 164,000 a day. Tata Electronics' OSAT facility in Assam cost ₹270bn, about $3.25bn. Its approved capacity is 48 million units a day. CG Power plans a ₹76bn plant in Sanand, Gujarat for 15 million units a day. Kaynes Technology's ₹33.07bn facility, also in Sanand, has a design capacity of more than 6.33 million units a day.

Nitin Dodia, a semiconductor consultant, put the cost of a mature-packaging facility at ₹1.5bn to ₹2bn. He said the bigger test is an anchor customer. A new OSAT should have one buyer committed for three to five years, he said.

What happens next

Bosch's Semiconductors division begins operating in January 2028. TrendForce expects 8-inch capacity to shrink through the first half of 2027. Samsung plans price increases for 2027.

Apple is feeling the same market. On its earnings call on Monday, chief executive John Ternus called memory pricing "unprecedented". He predicted memory costs in the fourth quarter of this year would be even higher than in the previous three months. CXMT plans to send customers samples of its first server-grade DRAM by the end of this year. The DRAM uses the 4F² architecture. CXMT did not disclose a mass production timeline.