UK-based chipmakers can collaborate with EU businesses on semiconductor design projects funded by the EU, which are unlocking billions of Euros of funding.
The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) announced on Wednesday that Britain has joined the Chips Joint Undertaking (CJU) scheme, an EU public-private partnership with a total budget of €11bn to be spent by 2030, partly funded under the EU’s R&D programme Horizon Europe.
Britain will take part as a “participating state”, equivalent to full membership status, which will allow it to play a role in setting research priorities and funding decisions as the scheme evolves.
“Our membership of the Chips Joint Undertaking will boost Britain’s strength in semiconductor science and research to secure our position in the global chip supply chain,” says UK technology minister Saqib Bhatti.
But some founders don’t think it will be what Europe needs to get ahead in the global semiconductor race.
Europe should pump “five times” the money it is investing in semiconductors to be able to compete with the US and China, says Rodolfo Rosini, CEO at Vaire Computing, a London-based chip startup that aims to develop faster and more compact computing circuits. He also says Europe should set more specific targets and deadlines for what it wants to achieve with that capital.
“There’s a lack of ambition on what’s going to be the most important technology of our lifetime,” he adds.
Working together
The European Commission launched the CJU last autumn as part of a wider push to grow the European semiconductor industry and reduce the continent’s reliance on cutting-edge technology from Asian and US competitors.
The EU forecasts a doubling in demand for semiconductors between 2022 and 2030, and wants to protect its supply amid increasing geopolitical tension regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan — home to the manufacturers of the most advanced chips.
Advanced chipmaking equipment is a European strength — success stories include the continent’s most valuable tech company, Eindhoven-based ASML, which holds a global monopoly on extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, and Germany’s Carl Zeiss SMT, a specialist in making mirrors and lenses used in the world’s most advanced chipmaking equipment.
But chip design startups focused on AI in Europe are still trying to make a name for themselves.
Sean Redmond, managing partner at Silicon Catalyst.UK, a semiconductor design startup incubator funded by the British government, says the UK chip industry has a “rich history of collaboration” with the EU. He adds that partaking in the EU CJU will “significantly increase” British startups’ “probability of success, mitigating risks by local collaborations that provide a clear path from lab to fab”.
The Commission has started rolling out the money and plans to pump €1.67bn of EU funding into four pilot production lines aimed at helping companies take their innovations to market by this summer.
These will support, for instance, the development of a cloud-based design platform. This aims to allow startups and academia to develop their chips at a much lower cost by reducing their need to invest in IT equipment as well as expensive electronic design software.
Part of that initial pot will fund projects to:
- Advance quantum chips technology;
- Support businesses developing technology for advanced semiconductors at the size of just 2 nanometres and less;
- Back efforts to develop chips with materials other than silicon;
- Establish a network of competence centres to build Europe’s chipmaking skills.
