INFRACHIP initiative aims at advancing the state-of-the-art by supporting comprehensive user projects for multi-and-trans-disciplinary path-finding research on sustainable Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) driven by the secure edge.
For this, we provide seamless simplified user-centric access to a diverse interdisciplinary offer portfolio for enhancing the development of critical leading-edge semiconductor technologies.
INFRACHIP lowers the barriers for academics and industrial researchers, in particular early career researchers (ECR) and from start-ups/SMEs, to build R&I capacity, as the backbone of a European Research Infrastructure (ERI) that offers access to technology blocks and key enabling capabilities for the sustainable development of semiconductor products based on chips that power, sense, compute (“think”) and connect, and thereby enabling actuation and control, making the world a better connected, healthy, reliable, energy- and resource- efficient and secure place.
This will be accomplished by offering Transnational Access (TA) projects to an integrated multi-site RI with multidisciplinary expertise and significant capital investment on SOTA equipment; access may include more than one offer, at a single or at multiple facilities, remotely or on-site as appropriate. The organisation of a Research Accelerator Programme (RAP) will also play a role, by introducing the INFRACHIP offer at various partners’ sites and accelerating the research of participants through the submission of TA proposals.
INFRACHIP will foster a large multidisciplinary user base and ecosystem of collaborators to advance the twin green and digital transition, by:
To accelerate the translation of results from the lab to the fab, INFRACHIP channels project activities to Testing and Experimentation Facilities, European Digital Innovation Hubs, and Pilot Lines.
INFRACHIP will bring together approximately €2bn of investment in infrastructure and technology blocks that are not available elsewhere as a whole. It is our goal to shorten the translation path from the lab to the fab by enabling researchers to unlock the research and innovation (R&I) capacity for next-generation and future greener semiconductor chips through access to state-of-the-art (SOTA) infrastructure and platform technologies, leading expertise and training support. These challenge-driven projects will target the introduction of new materials, proof-of-concept, and feasibility studies of new manufacturing processes or disruptive technologies.
More concretely, INFRACHIP will provide a conduit to exploit TA project outputs through access to Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEF), European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH), and Pilot Lines to accelerate path-finding from fundamental principles to proof-of-concept and capturing the innovation potential. It will bring together the academic user community with innovation stakeholders through Silicon Europe industry clusters and other semiconductor industry forums, to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and technologies. Lastly, it will disseminate outputs from the TA studies as examples of the value and impact of cross-disciplinary collaborations and leveraging of semiconductor tools and technology platforms.
INFRACHIP develops talent and trains a skilled workforce, organising hands-on training courses on the fabrication, characterisation, and testing of standard and emerging concepts along the chip manufacturing process, utilising the research infrastructure of the Access Providers. Furthermore, leveraging other educational networks funded by ERASMUS+ and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions will contribute to co-educate potential INFRACHIP users.
TITLE: European Research Infrastructure on Semiconductor Chips
START-END: January 2024 – December2027
EU CONTRIBUTION: 14 457 463 €
TOPIC: HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01
Coordinator: Tyndall National Institute
INFRACHIP (2024-2027) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation actions under GA No. 101131822