TU/e is one of the partners in EU Chips Design Platform

A consortium of 12 European partners, coordinated by imec, has been selected in the framework of the European Chips Act to develop the EU Chips Design Platform. 

Funded by Chips JU, the platform will facilitate access to advanced semiconductor design infrastructure, training, and capital for fabless semiconductor startups, small and medium enterprises and research organizations. 

By providing the necessary resources, the initiative aims to democratize and foster semiconductor innovation across Europe, specifically for chip design.

The Platform Coordination Team of the EU Chips Design Platform consists of: imec (Belgium), the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA, France), Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e. V. (Germany), Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP, Germany), Silicon Austria Labs (Austria), Fondazione Chips-IT (Italy), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, Spain), International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (Portugal), Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands), Tampere University (Finland), CVUT (Czech Republic) and AGH University of Krakow (Poland). 

The semiconductor industry is the backbone of modern technology, powering everything from smartphones to advanced medical devices. With the EU Chips Act, Europe is dedicated to increasing its global semiconductor market share. 

Next to the launch of European pilot lines that aim to develop key technologies for semiconductor innovation, the EU Chips Act has proposed the EU Chips Design Platform as a vehicle to support the growth of fabless chip companies in Europe.

The EU Chips Design Platform will enable fabless companies to access the resources they need quickly and efficiently via a cloud-based virtual environment, offering chip design resources, training, and capital. Coordinated by imec, 12 key European research players in the semiconductor ecosystem have joined forces in a consortium to create this design platform.

The platform aims to onboard the first startups and small and medium enterprises by early 2026, providing them with low-barrier access to European design capabilities, including route-to-chip fabrication, packaging, and testing. It will offer customized support to access commercial electronic design automation (EDA) tools, intellectual property (IP) libraries, EU Chips Act pilot line technologies, and access to design IP repositories, including open-source options. 

Additionally, the platform will feature a startup support program with incubation, acceleration, and mentoring activities next to financial assistance to help early-stage companies turn their innovative ideas into reality.

Katia Panina, Knowledge Valorization Officer, Open Access coordinator at JePPIX, stated that the EU Chips Design Platform is a game changer as it mobilizes the chip design expertise across the entire Europe. It will be the central place to go to for training, IP, prototyping, manufacturing of integrated circuits. It will further reduce the access and knowledge barrier to advanced nodes and key enabling technologies like photonics. 

In this Platform, TU/e is representing the needs of the integrated photonics ecosystem, particularly start-ups and SMEs that want to boost their product performance with photonic integrated circuits (PICs). We are fully dedicated to our mission to make PICs easy.

The grant agreement with the Chips JU, through the European Union’s Digital Europe program, is ongoing and will be signed later this year. The project will run from 2025 until the end of 2028.