The only Kenyan chipmaker tossed around by US geopolitics

In central Kenya, nestled between two tea plantations, lies East Africa’s first semiconductor factory. It occupies a conference room converted into a laboratory on the campus of Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, one of the best engineering schools in the country.

Inside, mechatronics engineers dressed in white coats must pass through glass doors, wash their hands before putting on caps and putting on shoe covers. Behind the last door, in a white room lit by sterilizing light, pancakes sparkle [wafers] of silicon

The factory’s crown jewel of innovation is a high-precision lithography machine that engineers have named “Ol’Borana†. It was designed in-house and assembled locally with imported components so that Kenyan engineers understand each component and can repair or reproduce it if global supply chains fail.

“Friend-shoring” strategy

Semiconductor Technologies Limited (STL) founder Anthony Githinji established the company in 2018 after thirty years working in the semiconductor industry in the United States. The STL laboratory is tiny compared to the factories