Slovakia Opens Chips Competence Centre to Support Semiconductor Industry

        Bratislava, 14 November (TASR) - Slovakia opened its own Chips Competence Centre on Friday at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Slovak University of Technology (STU) in Bratislava, with the event attended by state secretaries of the education and economy ministries Jan Hrinko and Vladimir Simonak, respectively, TASR reported on the same day.
        As part of a European initiative, the Slovak Chips Competence Centre will bring together all key representatives of the country's semiconductor sector, the government, state authorities, research institutions, academia and the chip industry in order to build a strong and competitive ecosystem for Slovakia's semiconductor industry.
        "The main mission of our chips competence centre is to support the development of the Slovak semiconductor industry," said the centre's director Michal Micjan. He noted that the centre can help small and medium-sized enterprises or start-ups to grow.
        "For example, we can help to bring new products to the market by using our expertise," explained Micjan, adding that Slovak companies, research organisations and universities will also gain access to European infrastructure.
        Hrinko considers this project to be very important for Slovakia in that it will "create a space that brings together education, research, development, science and industry under comprehensive and unified modern infrastructure".
        Simonak pointed out that Europe is lagging behind in technologies such as semiconductors and chips.
        "It's simply not competitive compared with regions of the world that drive innovation forward. In terms of long-term economic sustainability, this situation is unacceptable," he said, praising the fact that the chips competence centre will be Slovakia's contribution to a collective European effort aimed at reversing this trend.