Europe provides €24 million for cloud-based chip design platform

Norway’s Tampere University and 11 other partners have received €24 million in European Union funding to develop a “comprehensive” chip design platform available to startups and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).

The Design Platform consortium comprises 12 European research organizations and universities and has the task of creating a platform to house a comprehensive range of EDA tools and services.

The Design Platform is describes as a cloud-based virtual environment to be made available across the European Union, integrating existing and novel design facilities, from IP libraries to EDA tools, as well as providing a hub for access support services.

The Design Platform is intended to underpin access to the Chips for Europe pilot line initiative launched under the European CHIPS Act.

The five pilot lines being provided are: 1nm logic, low-power FDSOI, heterogeneous system integration (chiplet assembly), photonic ICs and wide-bandgap materials (power and RF).

The Design Platform consortium will define and develop a cloud-based service that integrates all the necessary chip design tools, allowing companies that cannot afford tools to test and experiment with them. The consortium will also establish criteria for awarding European funds for chip design projects under the ‘Chips from Europe’ initiative.

Tampere University is the only consortium member from the Nordic region.

How long the project lasts, whose tools will be included in the Design Platform and when it will be operational were not disclosed.