What is Bosch? Here’s what to know about the company planning a revamped Roseville site
Bosch, a German conglomerate with more than 400,000 employees worldwide, announced Wednesday that it plans to acquire a Roseville-based semiconductor company, turning its foundry into a manufacturing facility for silicon carbide chips.
That’s a lot of tech talk, but the deal is a substantial one for the suburban city just northeast of Sacramento.
Though Bosch and TSI Semiconductors did not disclose financial details of the disclosure, Bosch said it plans to invest $1.5 billion into its new California foothold. Vice President Kamala Harris and local leaders lauded the planned investment.
Here’s a quick background on Bosch, as well as a breakdown of some of the technology involved and why it is important.
What is Bosch? What does the company make?
Robert Bosch GmbH is an engineering and technology company founded in 1886, currently headquartered in Gerlingen, Germany.
Bosch operates in four main sectors: mobility solutions, industrial technology, consumer goods and energy technology.
Bosch’s manufacturing of silicon carbide (SiC) chips falls within its mobility solutions sector, which is the largest of the four. SiC chips are used extensively in modern electric vehicles because they are more energy efficient than traditional silicon chips, allowing for longer ranges and more efficient charging.
The consumer goods wing of Bosch manufactures household appliances including dishwashers, refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, power tools and more.
Bosch at the end of 2022 employed about 420,000 people, according to its website, including nearly 37,000 in North America.
What is TSI Semiconductors? Where is it in Roseville?
TSI Semiconductors campus is at 7501 Foothills Blvd. near Roseville’s Pleasant Grove neighborhood.
The campus is made up of the company’s headquarters, along with a manufacturing foundry that includes 150,000 square feet of “cleanroom” space.
Founded in 1984, the company currently produces application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) but will be transformed to manufacture SiC chips.
TSI Semiconductors in a 2020 application to the federal Paycheck Protection Program reported having 232 employees. Bosch in Wednesday’s announcement said it has a workforce of 250.
When will the Bosch site be up and running?
Bosch said its “retooling” of the TSI Semiconductors facility should be complete by 2026.
What are semiconductors? Silicon carbide? How do they work?
A semiconductor is a material that conducts electricity at high temperatures and conducts very little electricity at low temperatures. Semiconductors are used as the basis for computer chips.
Silicon has been the standard semiconductor material used for chips throughout the modern computing era.
Technology and manufacturing improvements have led some chip-makers to shift to using a compound called silicon carbide, especially those producing chips for the electric vehicle industry.
“In electric vehicles, SiC chips enable greater range and more efficient recharging, as they use up to 50 percent less energy,” Bosch wrote in Wednesday’s announcement.
Bosch has been manufacturing silicon carbide chips since 2021 out of its two existing facilities in Germany. The Roseville site would be its third, and its first outside of Germany.
“By 2025, Bosch expects to have an average of 25 of its chips integrated in every new vehicle,” the company said.
Semiconductors as a whole remain in very high demand due to a global supply shortage that started in early 2020, shortly after the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is still ongoing.
