Bosch paid $42.4 million for the Roseville campus of TSI Semiconductors, where the German engineering company plans to invest $1.5 billion to install a microchip fabrication line for components for electric vehicles and chargers.
Placer County property records show the 42-acre campus at 7501 Foothills Blvd. and its numerous buildings sold for $42.4 million as part of the transaction that closed at the end of August.
Bosch announced in April that it wanted the TSI manufacturing campus in Roseville because that facility already had clean room space and specialized personnel working on chip fabrication. The Roseville location is already served with robust electricity transmission from the municipal utility Roseville Electric, and the factory has existing wastewater treatment and other infrastructure that takes a long time to permit and build.
Stefan Hartung, chairman of Stuttgart-based Bosch's board of management, has said timing was critical, and it wanted TSI's factory to get to manufacturing quickly.
The TSI plant was the right size for what Bosch needed, and it has a staff of about 250 employees who know how to work with similar manufacturing technology. They are now employees of U.S. subsidiary Robert Bosch Semiconductor LLC.
Rather than make power-control chips, which is what TSI has manufactured in Roseville, Bosch will install new state-of-the-art fabrication equipment to make silicon carbide chips manufactured on a line of 200-millimeter wafers.
In several previous interviews, Hartung said he wants the Roseville plant to start delivering chips to the automotive market by 2026.
That speed to market made Roseville attractive, because it takes a long time to develop chip plants from the ground up. By buying TSI, Bosch gets a head start with a building prepared for exactly this use.
Bosch will essentially build an entirely new manufacturing line inside the existing building, said Michelle Willard, chief public affairs officer for the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, an economic development group.
The price of the other TSI assets Bosch acquired has not been disclosed.
“As disclosed at both the signing and closing, Bosch plans to invest more than $1.5 billion into the Roseville site,” said Tim Wieland, Bosch spokesman in North America. He said Bosch and TSI Semiconductors agreed not to disclose any financial details of the transaction.
The total sales price of the company likely includes more than just real estate and building value, though he said he couldn’t comment on that.
Bosch has had design and project teams on the site in Roseville since earlier this year.
Semiconductor industry specialist and Bosch veteran Thorsten Scheer is leading the new Robert Bosch Semiconductor LLC organization, and he is plant manager of Roseville and regional president of the Bosch Automotive Electronics division in North America.
The semiconductor manufacturing plant in Roseville was started up in 1984 by Japanese technology company NEC Electronics, and the property has been sold several times over the years.
Bosch in June received approval for a California Competes Tax Credit incentive of $25 million for its future investment in Roseville. The company is also seeking funding from the federal Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022, also known as the CHIPS Act.
