BMWE: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs Supports Innovative Chip Startup QuantumDiamonds

Gitta Connemann, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, emphasized: Germany needs strong, innovative companies. That is why the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria are jointly investing in the production ramp-up of the deep-tech startup QuantumDiamonds. This is an investment in the future of our business location. Chips are the key to the technologies of tomorrow. They are found in almost every product today. And the market is growing rapidly. Those who want to secure value creation tomorrow must break new technological ground today. By supporting QuantumDiamonds, we are strengthening Germany’s position in the semiconductor ecosystem. Especially in geopolitically challenging times, we are solidifying our role as an indispensable part of global chip value chains.

Hubert Aiwanger, Bavarian Minister of State for Economic Affairs, Regional Development, and Energy, emphasized: “With the QuantumDiamonds project, we are supporting a future-oriented technology with international appeal.” The company combines cutting-edge Bavarian research with industrial implementation and strengthens our technological sovereignty in one of the most important key technologies of our time. Anyone who wants to be independent in the field of semiconductors must also master the technologies used to test and qualify chips. This is exactly where QuantumDiamonds comes in.

QuantumDiamonds GmbH was founded in 2022 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich. It develops innovative precision measurement technology for the semiconductor industry. Using so-called nitrogen vacancies in synthetic diamonds, the measurement systems detect magnetic fields with extreme precision. This enables chip manufacturers to detect defects in their components on the nanometer scale—non-destructively and in three dimensions—within minutes. The defect detection method developed by QuantumDiamonds is of strategic importance to the European chip industry and is to be further scaled up as part of the funded project. German and European semiconductor manufacturing facilities are already technological leaders today.

QuantumDiamonds is already the third project—following GlobalFoundries in Dresden and X-Fab in Erfurt—that the BMWE is funding with co-financing from the respective federal states in accordance with the state aid rules of the European Chips Act. The processes for the European Commission’s approval of the respective state aid have been underway since 2025 and are expected to be completed this year. Nine additional projects have already received state aid approval (see “Background” for details).

Background:

The funding supports the implementation of the Microelectronics Strategy and contributes to the implementation of Germany’s High-Tech Agenda.

The projects approved to date under state aid law exhibit great diversity in terms of company size, locations, and technologies. They thus also demonstrate that chip innovations and investments in Germany are taking place across the board. Beyond the large chip factories, they cover the value chain with strategically relevant technologies, leverage local strengths, and create jobs—in the areas of manufacturing equipment, chip testing methods, innovative materials and substrates, and advanced packaging.

The BMWE will issue decisions shortly on the remaining projects approved under state aid law, as well as on several smaller projects that are exempt from notification to the European Commission under the General Block Exemption Regulation.

Projects under the BMWE’s Chips Act initiative that have received state aid approval:

GlobalFoundries Dresden Module Two Limited Liability Company & Co. KG | Dresden | Expansion of the front-end fab in Dresden with 300mm technology, specifically for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure. |  495 million euros
X-Fab MEMS Foundry GmbH | Erfurt | Expansion of the MEMS foundry in Erfurt using innovative packaging and integration processes | 128 million
QuantumDiamonds GmbH | Munich | Advanced inspection systems for the semiconductor industry based on novel quantum sensors | 76 million euros
Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH | Oberkochen | Industrialization of the next generation of optical EUV columns for semiconductor lithography | 222 million euros
Zadient Materials Europe GmbH | Bitterfeld | Novel production facility for ultra-pure silicon carbide (SiC) | 66 million euros
Vishay Siliconix Itzehoe GmbH | Itzehoe | Production of the next generation of power MOSFETs | 214 million euros
KLA-Tencor MIE GmbH | Weilburg | Production of advanced optical overlay and layer measurement technology | 74.4 million euros
Element 3-5 GmbH | Baesweiler | Construction of a state-of-the-art factory for so-called SiC epitaxial wafers | 353 million euros
Ketek GmbH | Munich | Manufacturing of silicon drift detectors and so-called “graphene radiation entry windows” | 17.9 million euros

Additional projects are currently still undergoing the approval process with the European Commission.

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