Europe’s first Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI)
–
Innovative Technologies for Shaping the Future
In December 2018 the European Commission approved a project proposal of four EU member states – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – to start an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on Microelectronics. It will allow the national governments to spend about €1.8 billion as public support to the project partners for innovative research and development, and investment in first industrial deployment. The project’s overall objective is to enable research and development of innovative technologies and advanced electronics components. Among them are semiconductor chip technologies, integrated circuits, sensors, assembly and packaging technologies as well as advanced equipment and materials. Target applications are consumer devices, for example, home appliances and automated vehicles, commercial and industrial devices, such as the management systems for batteries used for electric mobility and energy storage.
The integrated research and innovation project involves 27 direct participants. These direct participants will work in collaboration with a large number of partners, such as research organizations or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The IPCEI project is focusing on five technology fields (TF), which are complementary and interlinked:
(1) Energy-efficient chips: Development of new solutions to improve the energy efficiency of chips. Besides others, they will reduce the overall energy consumption of electronic devices including those installed in cars.
(2) Power semiconductors: Development of new technologies of components for smart appliances as well as for electric and hybrid vehicles, to increase the reliability of final semiconductor devices.
(3) Smart sensors: Development of new optical, motion or magnetic field sensors with improved performance and enhanced accuracy. Besides others, such smart sensors will contribute to improve the traffic safety of cars by better adapting the overall traffic situation. Key will be to make sensor systems with shorter reaction time and increased reliability available.
(4) Advanced optical equipment: Development of advanced technologies for future high-end chips.
(5) Compound materials: Development of new compound materials (replacing silicon) and devices suitable for more advanced chips.
During the Focus Session, 14 papers will be presented by people from the industry. The papers will be grouped into four categories:
Please see ESSDERC Program for details.
