ANTWERP, Belgium, May 21 (Reuters) - The European chip

industry should focus on bolstering its strengths as a research

centre and crucial chipmaking equipment producer rather than

trying to create a cutting edge chip manufacturer, the CEO of

semiconductor research firm imec said.

"You can't make an advanced chip without European

technology," Luc Van den Hove told reporters at the ITF World

conference on Tuesday.

He noted that the world's biggest equipment maker ASML

depended on German optics and imec research. Europe

also houses smaller but crucial equipment companies such as ASM

International.

Earlier on Tuesday Belgium-based imec announced that it

would host a 2.5-billion euro (2.72 billion) pilot line for

researching future generations of chips that are more advanced

than the 2 nanometre which is just entering production.

But Van den Hove said that should not be seen as a prelude

to any domestic European chip company or startup building its

own 2-nanometre or better commercial plant such as Japanese firm

Rapidus is attempting with government support.

"Whether we should build our own sub-two nanometre foundry,

I have my doubts whether that makes sense to say it mildly," he

said.

Rather, Europe should continue to woo construction of such

plants from the global big three logic chip manufacturers, TSMC

, Intel ( INTC ) and Samsung.

Currently, only Intel ( INTC ) has plans to build a major plant on

European soil manufacturing better than 2 nanometre chips, in

Magdeburg, Germany, though TSMC has plans for a less than 22

nanometre plant in Dresden - a "legacy node" or slightly older

generation of technology in industry terms.

Van den Hove said that Europe needed those too.

"We have to make sure that we avoid a shortage of legacy

nodes, because in China, there's a lot of capacity being built

up on legacy nodes," a potential geopolitical risk, he said.

Europe also has strong legacy node chipmakers of its own, he

said, naming NXP, Infineon, Bosch, and

STMicroelectronics as "all leaders in their specific

segment".

($1 = 0.9200 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Emelia

Sithole-Matarise)