EU invests €700 million in newly opened NanoIC, Europe\'s largest Chips Act pilot line
ec.europa.eu
The European Union has launched its largest Chips Act pilot line, NanoIC, at IMEC Leuven, a major milestone for European semiconductor development and manufacturing.

The European Union has launched its largest Chips Act pilot line, NanoIC, at IMEC Leuven, a major milestone for European semiconductor development and manufacturing. With a total investment of €2.5 billion, the facility has received €700 million in EU funding, €700 million from national and regional governments, and the remainder from ASML and other industry partners. NanoIC will accelerate the development of next-generation semiconductor technology, essential for the development of AI, autonomous vehicles, healthcare and 6G mobile technology.

NanoIC is the first European facility to deploy the most advanced Extreme Ultraviolet lithography machine, focusing on designing and manufacturing chips using technology beyond two nanometres.

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It is built on the principle of open access, with start-ups, researchers, SMEs and large organisations able to use the facilities at NanoIC. Hosted by IMEC (Belgium), its partners include CEA-Leti (France), Fraunhofer (Germany), VTT (Finland), CSSNT (Romania) and Tyndall National Institute (Ireland).

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The five pilot lines (NanoIC, FAMES, APECS, WBG and PIXEurope) under the Chips Act together represent a combined EU and national investment of €3.7 billion, bridging Europe’s research excellence with industrial application. The opening of the NanoIC pilot line follows the inauguration of FAMES on 30 January.

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  • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    People often forget that the world’s most advanced photolithography machines that print out the fastest chips on the market in TSMC fabs are made by ASML which is Dutch, so the EU might be very far behind in manufacturing capacity but they can catch up real quick if this initial investment becomes a marketable roadmap

    • portach@fedia.io
      4·
      2 days ago

      I’m not sure this is meant to compete where the bulk of revenue is generated. It seems more like the EU doubling down on areas where they already dominate, or possibly snatch some future IP while it’s still in the cradle. It’s nice to see either way.

      I think the manufacturing capacity gap is overstated. It’s marginal between the EU and US, presently at least. The enormous differences are in revenue (of the US vs RoW) which makes sense considering the IP for most logic chips is American, so even current EU logic manufacturing delivers most revenue back home to the US.

      I’ve no connection to the field, but it is both interesting and perplexing. RISC-V (like RISC) seems perpetually on the horizon, but this time Open Source. That the US wants to reshore the most difficult but least revenue-generating production stages is unorthodox. Not everybody needs 2nm and I’d love to see more capacity/expertise spread everywhere in the world.