As part of the EU Chips Act, the Chips for Europe Initiative aims to enhance technological capacity and innovation within the European Union. To achieve this, the Initiative focuses on improving the technological infrastructure by making Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools more accessible and upgrading existing semiconductor testing and fabrication facilities, known as Pilot Lines, to support fabless development. Currently, there are five Pilot Lines, each addressing a specific technological challenge in the fabrication process:
The NanoIC pilot line is hosted by imec and provides a leading-edge, beyond-2 nm System-on-Chip (SoC) platform for advanced logic, memory, and interconnect technologies. By providing start-ups, SMEs, universities, and design and systems companies with early-stage process design kits (PDKs), the NanoIC pilot line enables early design exploration of future IC technologies and the prototyping of advanced technology components on commercially available foundry wafers.
Coordinated by CEA-Leti, the FAMES pilot line offers chipmakers, startups, fabless companies, and academics a pathway to developing high-performance, low-power chips by providing access to Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology. FAMES is focused on advancing FD-SOI technologies at the 10 nm and 7 nm nodes, while also developing embedded Non-Volatile Memory (eNVM) solutions, RF components, 3D integration, and advanced Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) technologies.
APECS is the European pilot line for advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, providing industry, SMEs and research organisations with access to technologies, infrastructure and expertise for chiplet innovation, system integration and industrial deployment. It serves as a one-stop shop, providing solutions across the entire process chain from design to packaging, including characterisation, testing, and reliability.
The Wide-Bandgap (WBG) pilot line focuses on developing wide–bandgap semiconductor technologies for high-power and RF electronic devices that are critical to the automotive and telecommunications industries. Through the investment in a new laboratory at the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IMM), the WBG pilot line furnishes cutting-edge infrastructure dedicated to the development and industrialisation of wide-bandgap semiconductors such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN).
PIXEurope is the fifth pilot line initiative launched through the European Chips Joint Undertaking and aims to accelerate the development of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology, a critical enabler for high-speed computing, communications, quantum information systems, and beyond. It will be Europe's first fully integrated, distributed Pilot Line connecting the entire PIC value chain – from design and fabrication to integration, packaging, and testing – across multiple coordinated European sites within a unified and standardised framework.
Chips JU, alongside the EU, has decided to fund a further six pilot lines focused on developing Quantum chips. These pilot lines are focused on the fabrication of Quantum devices for
More information on accessing these pilot lines will be provided as it becomes available.
