BelGaN was unable to find a buyer in time and has given up hope of a fresh start. The only Belgian chip factory has to close its doors.

There will be no takeover of BelGaN. The Belgian chip company filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of August, but still kept the door open for a takeover. Five candidates are said to have registered to take over the factory, but there are no “serious” offers among them, the appointed curator confirmed to VRTNWS. The deadline ended yesterday at 12 noon.

The factory is therefore forced to close its doors. The staff remains unemployed: more than four hundred people were employed in the factory. The contents of the factory, with an estimated value of around 500 million euros, are being liquidated.

Expensive gambling

BelGaN has only been active since 2022. The company took over the Oudenaarde site from the American Onsemi. From the outset, BelGaN’s management decided to focus on gallium nitride as the main component of its semiconductors. This material has a higher energy efficiency than the usual silicon. This required a complete changeover of the production line: a changeover that would take several years and, above all, cost a lot of money.

Things quickly got tough for BelGaN. The company looked for additional investments, but ultimately they were never found. BelGaN was faced with an acute lack of cash flow. Various options for investors were explored, but without success, so that the management now sees no other option than to close the books, explains the young Belgian company.

The BelGaN factory was the only site where chips were actively manufactured in our country. With the disappearance of the factory, there is no longer any chip production in Belgium. Belgium continues to play an important role in the global chip industry through IMEC.