Singapore has unveiled SG Semiconductor, a rebranding initiative intended to elevate the country’s global profile in the chip sector, attract investment, and streamline its advanced manufacturing capabilities amid a record S$800 million research fund commitment.
Singapore has unveiled SG Semiconductor, a new national identity for its chip sector, in a move intended to sharpen the country’s global profile and make its industrial offer easier to understand for overseas firms and specialists. The announcement was made by Dr Tan See Leng, the Minister for Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry), at Innovate Together 2026, a forum organised by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research that is designed to bring public research and industry together around semiconductor development. According to The Straits Times, the branding effort is aimed at drawing in both investment and talent. Singapore’s Economic Development Board says the initiative is also meant to align with a wider effort to deepen the country’s high-tech capabilities.
The branding comes on top of a substantial policy commitment made earlier this year. In March 2026, Singapore set aside S$800 million for semiconductor research and development under its Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2030 plan, with a particular emphasis on areas where the country already has recognised strengths, including advanced packaging and advanced photonics. The Economic Development Board has said the funding is intended to strengthen research capacity, deepen industry collaboration and improve the path from laboratory work to commercial deployment.
Singapore’s semiconductor sector has been built over nearly six decades and now spans chip design, wafer fabrication, assembly and testing, equipment and materials, and research. The government says the country accounts for about one-tenth of global chip output and around one-fifth of semiconductor manufacturing equipment production. SG Semiconductor is meant to pull these capabilities together under a single banner and showcase seven technology areas: advanced packaging, silicon photonics, power electronics, radio frequency gallium nitride, piezoelectric micro-electro-mechanical systems, flat optics and integrated circuit design.
The strategy is also being tied to a series of partnerships intended to move research into manufacturing more quickly. Applied Materials and ASTAR will begin a fourth phase of their long-running collaboration, expanding a joint laboratory to work on technologies for artificial intelligence and advanced computing. ASTAR and KLA are establishing a new process-control framework, while ASTAR and STATS ChipPAC will work on co-packaged optics with a view to higher-volume production. In silicon photonics, ASTAR and GlobalFoundries are deepening their work on 300 mm wafers in Singapore, a step designed to support higher-volume manufacturing for high-performance computing and data communications.
Other collaborations underline the breadth of the ecosystem Singapore is trying to assemble. Tacta Systems is working with ASTAR on intelligent sensing for robotics using the agency’s Lab-in-Fab platform, which combines research and manufacturing capabilities for development and validation. Separately, the National Centre for Advanced Integrated Photonics at Nanyang Technological University and Battery Age Minerals are exploring germanium-based devices for data communications, combining academic research with access to raw materials. ASTAR said Innovate Together, now in its second year, has become a regular meeting point for industry, academia and researchers, with this year’s event used to showcase progress across advanced packaging, silicon photonics, power electronics, RF GaN, piezoMEMS and flat optics.
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