The European Parliament’s (EP) Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) voted on adopting two legislative bills, the Chips Act and the EU Chips Joint Undertaking, on 24 January to support research, innovation, capacity building and investment in the EU semiconductor ecosystem.
These bills are relevant to UKRO subscribers’ effective participation in Horizon Europe funding opportunities because the EU Chips Act complements current EU research funding initiatives, such as Cluster 4 in Horizon Europe, and implementation of the ‘Chips for Europe Initiative’ will extend the scope of the current Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT JU).
Quick summary of key points in the bills
The legislative report on the Chips Act was adopted with a majority vote. The key points of this bill are listed below:
- The Act will support the creation of a network of competence centres to train early-stage researchers and attract new talent, to address the current shortage of semiconductor knowledge and skills within the European Union.
- An “innovative virtual design platform” will be set up to bring together design libraries, tools and support services with the goal of strengthening Europe’s design capacity,
- The Act will support pilot lines for third parties to support them to test, validate and further develop their product designs.
- Funding under the ‘EU Chips Fund’ will support debt financing and equity by start-ups, SMEs and other innovation parties, in order to attract investment and build up production capacity in the European semiconductor value chain.
- The Act includes the development of a European crisis response mechanism in case of semiconductor supply chain shortages and/or other impacts on semiconductor production and innovation in Europe.
In a separate vote, the EU Chips Joint Undertaking bill was adopted with a majority vote. As a result, the measures proposed under the Chips for Europe initiative to support large-scale technological capacity building, research and innovation, to develop next-generation semiconductor chips will be implemented.
The draft proposals and amendments are available on the EP’s Committee eMeeting website.
Next steps
The mandate for negotiations on the EU Chips Act will be announced at the opening of the EP plenary session in Strasbourg on 13-16 February. The EP will be able to start talks with the European Council unless there is a request for the decision to enter into negotiations to the plenary vote. Parliament will hold a vote on the EU Chips Joint Undertaking proposal during the same session.
Background
The EU Chips Act is a framework programme with the objective to strengthen the European semiconductor ecosystem by supporting large-scale technological capacity building and innovation, establishing resilient supply chains and reducing external dependencies. Set up under this Act, the Chips for Europe Initiative will support large-scale capacity building for semiconductor research and innovation to support the development of cutting-edge, next-generation semiconductor technologies. Actions proposed under the Chips for Europe Initiative will be primarily implemented through the EU Chips Joint Undertaking, which will be the renamed current KDT JU with an extended scope.