A consortium of 12 European partners, led by imec, has been chosen under the European Chips Act to create the EU Chips Design Platform. Supported by Chips JU, the platform will enable access to advanced semiconductor design infrastructure, training, and funding for fabless semiconductor startups, small and medium enterprises, and research institutions. Through the provision of essential resources, the project seeks to promote and democratize semiconductor innovation throughout Europe, with a particular focus on chip design.
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 allow fabless companies to access the necessary resources rapidly and efficiently through a cloud-based virtual environment. It will provide chip design resources, training, and capital. Coordinated by imec, twelve major European research entities in the semiconductor industry have collaborated in a consortium to establish 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.
"The EU Chips Design Platform will provide essential resources for startups and small and medium-sized enterprises to speed up their design process and bring their business concepts to the market more quickly. By lowering the barriers to accessing design expertise, such as EDA tools and IP, and significantly reducing chip design and manufacturing costs and time-to-market, we aim to stimulate the growth of the European chip design industry," stated.Romano HoofmanI am the imec project coordinator.
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 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.
Follow the.European Chips Design Platform LinkedIn pagefor more updates.