|
Processors and semiconductor technologies:
17 Member States signed a declaration
On 7 December, 17 EU Member States signed a declaration named “A European Initiative on Processors and semiconductor technologies”. They commit to work together to bolster Europe’s electronics and embedded systems value chain. “This will include a particular effort to reinforce the processor and semiconductor ecosystem”. The Member States aim to “establish advanced European chip design capabilities and production facilities processing toward leading-edge nodes for data processing and connectivity.”
The signatories are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. All Member States are invited to sign the text.
Commissioner Thierry Breton welcomed the declaration. He underlined that Europe needs to reduce critical dependencies while remaining open. Thierry Breton mentioned the need to progress towards 2nm nodes.
The reasoning behind the initiative: Europe is too dependent
The Member States note the importance of semiconductor components as they determine the characteristics of the products in which they are embedded, incl. security, privacy, energy-performance, and safety. They observe that it is a very advanced industry with between 15 to 20% of revenue spent in R&D, one of the highest percentages among industries.
The Member States point out that there are geopolitical changes, where regions tend to reinforce their local semiconductor ecosystems to avoid excessive dependencies on imports. Europe has strengths in power electronics, RF technologies, smart sensors for embedded AI, microcontrollers, low-power technologies, secure components, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
However, the signatories underline that Europe’s share of the 440 B€ global semiconductor market is only around 10%. Europe is too dependent on other regions, especially for electronic communications, data processing and compute tasks, incl. processors.
Therefore, Europe needs to strengthen its capacity to develop the next generation of processors and semi-conductors. The Member States aim to advance towards 2nm nodes for processor technology. In this declaration, they agree to work together to design and eventually fabricate the next generation of trusted, low-power processors for applications in high-speed connectivity, automated vehicles, aerospace and defence, health and agri food, AI, data centres, integrated photonics, supercomputing and quantum computing.
Concrete actions to be taken
The declaration aims to create synergies among national research and investment initiatives. It builds on the future KDT, EuroHPC, the European Processor Initiative and the existing IPCEI on microelectronics.
The budget will come from the EU (including from the Recovery and Resilience Facility), national budgets and the private sector.
More precisely, the Member States agree to:
1. Cooperate and engage in efforts to co-invest in semiconductor technologies across the full value chain and to this end:
-Mobilize industrial stakeholders through a future industrial alliance to establish strategic roadmaps and research and investment plans for processor design, deployment and fabrication that takes into account the full semiconductor ecosystem;
-Address common challenges through various funding mechanisms, including where feasible through the national Recovery and Resilience plans, contributing to a substantial increase in the production capability in Europe of semiconductors and embedded systems across the value chain, and processor chips with significant improvements in energy performance and speed by 2025;
-Design a multi-country and inclusive European Flagship Project through the development of a proposal for an Important Project of Common European Interest that aims to create a strong dynamic to bolster Europe’s electronics industry with a focus on the design ecosystem, supply chain capabilities and first industrial deployment of advanced semiconductor technologies, including scaling towards leading-edge process technologies for processor chips.
2. Supporting the use of semiconductor technologies in Europe and to this end:
-Facilitate exploitation by SMEs of advanced chip technologies in innovative products, and provide upskilling and reskilling opportunities for workers and students;
-Work towards common standards and, where appropriate, certification for trusted electronics, as well as common requirements for procurement of secure chips and embedded systems in applications that rely on or make extensive use of chip technology.
|
