This European semiconductor investment is intended to stimulate investment, creation, and expansion of the next generation of chip design companies.
The project has been launched under the EU Chips Act by vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, Henna Virkkunen.
Boosting the chip design industry
Currently, European chip design companies account for less than 1% of global revenues, due to a lack of demand. This investment aims to stimulate this demand from European designers.
The European Chip Design Platform will give design companies access to design tools, support services, intellectual property blocks, and greater access to manufacturing capacity, which can be the most expensive and difficult to access for small or early-stage companies.
Under this new programme, start-ups and companies can apply for funding with grants of up to €100,000 available for early-stage start-ups with proof-of-concept prototyping, while more developed start-ups can apply for grants from €16m to meet costs of development and commercialisation.
Guidance will also be available via the European network of Chip Competence Centres which can offer training, rapid prototyping, and access to resources.
Henna Virkkunen said: “The European Design Platform gives our chips start-ups and SMEs the support they need to overcome the barriers to turn their innovative ideas into silicon. It shows how Europe is ready to act on its technological sovereignty goals, not only through policy and promises, but also by investing in our future.”
Heavy investment into European chips
A total of €440m has been made available through grants from the EU and its member states, alongside another €85m in investment into the cloud-based platform’s infrastructure, running support services, and developing open-source chip design tools.
€285m of this investment comes from the EU budget, while €240m comes from the states taking part in the Chips Joint Undertaking.
The Chips Joint Undertaking aims to improve advanced chip designs for AI compute technologies, offering two linked funding opportunities covering different stages of the value chain. One €10m call will fund European AI chip demonstrators, while the larger €70m programme will establish the infrastructure needed to test those technologies and procure pilot systems.
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