The chip industry in Spain continues to grow with the US giant Intel as one of the agitators. On this occasion, the company has made a new investment in the Canarian company Wooptix, which has raised 10 million euros in a round led by the Spanish venture capital firm Bullnet Capital and the Center for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) and signed on Thursday, as EL MUNDO has been able to confirm.

Wooptix is a company born as a spin-off of the University of La Laguna in 2016 and that occupies an exceptional place in the Spanish ecosystem: it is the only national company dedicated to manufacturing equipment for chip manufacturers, a market segment that will move 87,000 million dollars in 2023.

Intel, through Intel Capital, has already been a shareholder in the company, but has decided to accompany it in its growth, as is also the case with Bullnet Capital, another of the initial investors.. It should be remembered that Intel will build an R&D laboratory in Barcelona within the framework of the Perte Chip with 400 million euros of public-private investment.

In addition, Wooptix has added to its shareholding Tokyo Electron, one of the leading Japanese manufacturers of semiconductor equipment, the European Innovation Fund and various players in the Basque industry such as Danobatgroup, Fagor Automation and Mondragón Promotion Fund.

Wooptix Metrology Equipment

The startup has developed a tool to measure the wafers in which the chips are placed in three dimensions. This metrology equipment has two virtues: it reduces the time it takes to measure from one minute to one second and it significantly increases the resolution of the images that are captured.

Thus, this solution, whose equipment is currently manufactured in Tenerife, makes it possible to review 60 wafers in the time that traditional teams supervise one, which would enable manufacturers to review all the wafers they produce or use and not just a selection, as is currently the case, with the corresponding million-dollar savings that would be produced by detecting defective products earlier.

USE OF FUNDS

Wooptix, founded by José Manuel Rodríguez and Javier Elizalde, will use the funds to robotize the system and take it to the manufacturing and standardization phase with the aim that it will be present in the large semiconductor factories soon.

The company highlights the flexibility of its technology, which it trusts will allow it to progressively reduce the number of nanometers to be measured to meet the requirements of major manufacturers such as TSMC and Samsung, who are huge in a race to make smaller chips.

As a first step, the company is manufacturing and installing three semiconductor metrology kits, each weighing one metric ton, in Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands.. Company sources acknowledge that all of its clients are international, but have expressed hope that installations attracted by the Perte Chip, such as the one recently announced by Broadcom, will attract a new national flow of clients to the company's offices.

Two decades ago Madonna revealed that, to stop the signs of the passage of time in her body, she ingested capsules full of antioxidants. Like the pop diva, other familiar faces began to challenge the biological clock with supplements

“The more diversity the company welcomes, the result will be reflected in more camaraderie, more commitment, as well as a better attitude and resistance of the workforce”. With these words, Paloma Segrelles, president of CEIM's Ethics, Equality and Diversity Committee, welcomed the event Diversity as a hallmark of the company, organized by EL MUNDO and Expansión and sponsored by Inditex and Port Aventura World. In addition, Segrelles criticized the “social stereotype that places women in certain jobs”, which, in turn, “conditions the statistics and reflects a lower salary.”

To this he added the urgent need to encourage girls to opt for scientific and technical careers, since, in his opinion, that will mean that, in the future, they will have “more pay and more social recognition”.. In addition, the president pointed out with concern the great inequality that still reflects our social, labor and economic reality. Specifically, he alluded to the fact that women lead the statistics for the majority of part-time contracts or reductions in working hours. “It would be convenient not to make the protection of maternity and family fall on the company and women,” he said.

After the president's welcome speech, Laura Tardón, editor of EL MUNDO, moderated the discussion table that brought together experts in the matter. Ana Sainz, general director of the Seres Foundation; Sonia Río, general director of the Foundation for diversity; Montse Pichot, general director of Senior Talent; Albert Sanantón, director of People & Culture, Portaventura World; and Camino San Millán, global manager of diversity and inclusion at Acciona.

“Diversity made visible and identified is anecdotal, interesting, very rich and builds better organizations; managed diversity allows inclusion through equity and that is a brutal difference,” said Montse Pichot. For her, despite the fact that diversity is “natural” and “has always existed”, many people perhaps did not dare to express themselves in their field of work, an issue that has changed over time. Thus, he opted to highlight the importance of companies agreeing on the “explicit recognition of all forms of diversity”.

reflection of society

But beyond that, Albert Sanantón pointed out that “companies are a reflection of society and society is yes or yes diverse. Losing that wealth in organizations is a mistake and translates into being less competitive”. For the director, the equation is simple: “Where do the most recognized people feel? Where they can be themselves,” he said.

And in this sense, for Ana Sainz, diversity management is key, but it must also be recognized that bias exists and is a barrier that still needs to be overcome. “We all tend to have people similar to us in the world of work or in our environment”. In relation to this bias, Sonia Río pointed towards artificial intelligence. “If all artificial intelligence is designed by white and Catholic men, the rest of us are not going to feel recognized, that is a reality with which we must be careful,” he warned.

On the other hand, Sainz insisted that “being diverse is not just meeting a quota, it is having it on the agenda and, above all, it implies a transformation”. On the other hand, Sainz emphasized how to manage generational diversity in Spain, one of the oldest countries in the world. “We are generating a fight between young talent and senior talent, when in reality we should take advantage of it and anticipate and set an example.”

Thus, from Acciona, Camino San Millán shared some of the company's recipes on the matter. “Diversity and inclusion must be on the agenda of the company's leaders”, as well as “promoting an inclusive culture that guarantees the participation of all employees and that includes training and awareness to break down barriers and end stereotypes”. For the expert, it is also essential to identify internal networks, ambassadors or key people who will make it possible for diversity initiatives to spread in the organization, as well as rely on external networks such as organizations or the public sector.. The event ended with a musical performance by La Fundación Sifu, under the art of Johann Sebastian Salvatori and Pol Oñate.

Prices in the Eurozone are 5.5% higher than a year ago, a general increase that is no longer only conditioned by the most volatile elements of the consumer basket (energy products and fresh food), since core inflation -which measures the price evolution of all the other goods and services we consume, and is determined above all by processed foods- stood at 6.8% in June, according to data published this Wednesday by Eurostat.

Although the general indicator has moderated six tenths to 5.5% -from the 6.1% it registered in May-, the problem is that the underlying indicator is still very high and only moderated one tenth last month, from 6.9% to 6.8%, an alarming level, given that this indicator measures trend inflation in the economy and serves to intuit how long it will take for prices to fall.

Given that this indicator has not given signs of relief, but rather the opposite, the market takes it for granted that the European Central Bank (ECB) at its next monetary policy meeting next week -on Thursday, July 27- will approve a new quarter-point increase in interest rates, up to 3.75%, a strategy that seeks to tighten financing conditions for families and companies, which will have to tighten their belts, cut consumption and investment, thus cooling the economy and forcing suppliers of goods and services to lower prices. prices.

Its objective is none other than to bring inflation back to healthy ground, that is, around 2%, a level that has not been recorded in the EU since May 2021.

The problem is that the interest rate increases that the ECB has carried out to date have not yet been effective in containing the increase in prices.. On the one hand, due to the time lag: it takes some time from when monetary policy tightens until it has an impact on the behavior of economic agents and, on the other, because the fiscal policy of the EU member countries is acting in the opposite direction, expansively, which contributes to rising inflation.

Another key factor that is making it difficult for inflation to fall is the labor market.. “The labor market remains active, which is a key concern for the ECB. While there are tentative initial signs of cooling off (think vacancy rates have passed their peak), unemployment held steady at a record low of 6.5% in May.. For the ECB, this means that the risk of prolonged wage growth remains, which is an important reason why the ECB is not pausing its hike cycle yet,” explained Bert Colijn, Eurozone economist at ING, who expects not only a rate hike in July (up to 3.75%) but also in September (up to 4%).

In Spain, headline inflation has moderated to reach 1.9% in June -its minimum for the year, predictably-, but core inflation remains at 5.9%. Although in our case the CPI is already rising below 2%, given that the monetary policy is community, we will have to wait for the whole Union to reach reasonable levels of inflation to see how the ECB takes its foot off the accelerator.

In addition, it must be taken into account that this decrease registered in the month of June will be reversed soon, since it is due to the 'step effect' of comparing with a month of June of last year in which prices rose strongly. Funcas experts expect new increases in the coming months and calculate that general inflation will once again be at levels close to 5% in December.

Not having children is a decision that, from a moment on, becomes irreversible. But it is also one that is not taken lightly and that can be based on many reasons.. Those who have already made the decision do not point to a single factor, but they do remember that the reconciliation between family life and work is increasingly complex. In addition, a skyrocketing home and precarious conditions do not help those who are still thinking about whether they want to have children to take the step if they believe that they simply will not be able to afford it.

“I have been selfish, I always say it: I have been selfish for looking after myself and my professional career,” Judith Mateo, a 41-year-old violinist born in Cuenca, but who lives in Madrid, explains by phone.. “It was because of my professional life: I travel a lot, I work on the radio and on TV, I have to study for many hours…”, he adds. “As I was living, I was doing more things professionally and in the end, well, hey, let the other have it, right?”, says the violinist. In addition, in his specific case, the profession adds complications to reconciliation, with unexpected trips and sudden jobs. And it's not just any job, it's his vocation. “I love my profession, if it did not exist, I would not have a life because my life is my profession,” he confesses. “Having someone who depends 100% on me does not fit into my schedule.”

Elísabet Benavent, a 39-year-old writer, offers a similar vision. “Our parents' generation at 30 had a house and children; our generation is paying abusive rents, they cannot afford to buy a house…. How is a 30-year-old couple going to consider having children in these socioeconomic conditions?. In his opinion, the analyzes should go a little further than one's own paternity or maternity. “People who choose not to be parents or not to be mothers have always known; I think that the fault of the aging of society is not so much of the people who decide not to have children as of the fact that there are many people who would like to and cannot”.

“To have a child you need time and dedication to them,” Mateo qualifies. Around her, she concedes, “everyone has children”: “I think that only when you get together with women artists do you realize that we have all had to choose there”. Although he mentions selfishness, his argument can also be understood from pragmatism. It's a matter of perspective: putting yourself first also means putting no one second. “I have given many violin classes to other people's children and you realize that they don't have time for them or that they enroll them in the conservatory and three or four different things to keep them entertained and to be able to have time for themselves,” he argues.. “Whoever has them has to be aware, it's not like having a dog.”

The writer Elisabet Benavent. John of the Seas

Benavent has also been clear for a long time that he will not want to have children. In his case, he points out, it was not always like this: “At first, when I finished university, I got married very soon and I did have children in mind, but because I never doubted that this was the model that I had to follow”. However, when he was still considering it, it was not possible, because at that time he worked in an office and “the economic issue was not very buoyant, and it was evident that I could not afford to have children in that situation”. “Then I began to realize that I had never asked myself if I really wanted to be a mother,” she recalls.. “I had gotten a bit carried away by the inertia of what is supposed to be expected of a woman my age.”

Sometimes it is simply a personal decision without many other conditions; in others, a combination of factors that make it impossible to combine working life with having children. “In my case, I wouldn't know how to tell you the reason, I just know that I don't want to,” illustrates Benavent. He also considers his work “very important” and believes that it could be an impediment, because it involves traveling and he does not have a support network in his city that allows him to balance it.

Anyway, it goes further. “Above all these things is that I don't want to be a mother,” she details. “And I don't want to be a mother because I have actively listened to my needs as an adult and my desires as an adult and being a mother is not among them”. In any case, both interviewees agree that it is something thoughtful and calm, which they know they will not regret.. “When I verbalize that I do not want to be a mother, they treat me with a certain paternalism, they tell me that I am going to change my mind and it will be too late,” laments Benavent. “No, it's a conscious decision,” settles the writer.

“I don't want to have children, but it seems like a miracle to me, a magical thing, and I celebrate my friends' pregnancies with great joy, because I believe that for someone who wants it, it is the most beautiful thing in life,” she contextualizes.. “But I don't think I'm going to regret not having them”. In this sense, they regret that their decision is always judged, regardless of the reason for which it was made.. “I am the typical one who releases a baby from a friend or someone very close to me and I don't know what to do with it,” explains Mateo, but, despite this, his motives are questioned.. “They often compare you to dogs, like you go crazy for not having children”. “Many times they ask me who is going to take care of me when I am old and it seems to me a terrible argument to encourage people to have children,” adds Benavent.. “That does seem selfish to me: having children to take care of you when you are old seems a bleak prospect to me.”