On Friday 1 December, the European Commission inaugurated the Chips Joint Undertaking (‘Chips JU’), which aims to strengthen public and private funding for research and innovation in this sector and ultimately to reduce the European Union’s dependence on China (see EUROPE 13229/11).
Between now and 2030, the Joint Undertaking will have to manage an estimated budget of almost €11 billion from the EU and participating countries. On Friday, the Commission announced a first call for proposals for pre-commercial pilot lines, with EU funding of €1.67 billion. This amount should be supplemented by funding from the Member States to reach €3.3 billion, to which private funds will also be added.
Open until March 2024, these calls for proposals will cover the following technologies aimed at developing the next generations of high-performance, low-energy consumption semiconductors: - Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator, towards 7 nanometres (nm); - Leading-edge nodes, below 2 nm; - Heterogeneous system integration and assembly; - Wide Bandgap semiconductors to enable electronic devices to operate at much higher voltages, frequencies and temperatures than silicon-based devices.
On the same day, the Commission also announced the first meeting of the ‘European Semiconductor Board’. Bringing together the Member States, this body will advise the EU institution on the implementation of the European regulation on electronic chips and on international collaboration in the field of semiconductors.
For further information on ‘Chips JU, go to https://aeur.eu/f/9wr (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)