eenewseurope.com, Jan. 17, 2025 –
The heads of four leading research institutes in Europe have met up for the launch of the first five EU Chips Act pilot lines.
Luc Van den hove of imec in Belgium, François Jacq of CEA-Leti in France, Albert Heuberger of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Germany, Stefano Fabris of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Italy, and Valerio Pruneri of ICFO in Spain met with new European Commission VP Henna Virkkunen. The pilot lines aim to bridge the gap between research innovation and manufacturing, strengthening the semiconductor ecosystem across CMOS .
Hosted by imec, the $1.4bn NanoIC pilot line will go beyond the 2nm process technology currently being developed, from 1nm down to 7A. Other partners include VTT in Finland, CSSNT in Romania, and Tyndall National Institute in Ireland as well as lithography equipment maker ASML.
imec is also working with other pilot lines coordinated by CEA-Leti on low power FD-SOI (FAMES Pilot Line), by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft on heterogeneous system integration (APECS Pilot Line), and by ICFO on photonic integrated circuits (PIXEurope), with the fifth pilot line led by Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Italy focusing on new wide band gap materials (WBG). The APECs line started operation in December last year.
"A key asset of the APECS pilot line is its decentralized structure, which combines specialized technological expertise from partners across Germany and beyond," said Kai Zajac, project manager at Fraunhofer IPMS.
"Based in Berlin, the APECS one-stop-shop provides clients with tailored solutions for heterogeneous integration and chiplet technology. Here, the customer works with APECS to determine the best path to the final product. Once a concept is in place, the extensive APECS network of partners will dive deep with the customer and build the final prototypes and products," he added.