News | CEA heads FAMES, a pilot line for the European microelectronics industry
CEA heads FAMES, a pilot line for the European microelectronics industry
This Tuesday, March 18, the CEA opened the FAMES pilot line to its industrial and academic partners, dedicated to the maturation of five key microelectronics technologies, fostering the emergence of higher-performance, more energy-efficient and more sustainable chips. The CEA has been entrusted with this investment of almost a billion euros, co-financed by France 2030 and the European Commission as part of the Chips Act, which is vital to the competitiveness and strategic autonomy of European industry. It underscores CEA’s leading role as a major player in semiconductor research, recognized for its ability to bring technologies to maturity and transfer them to industry.
An investment of €830 million, including 1,900 m² of cleanroom space and 96 new machines: this is the investment in FAMES, the new pilot line installed mainly at the CEA center in Grenoble. The funding is provided by the European Commission and member states, including the French government through France 2030.
Supported from the outset by more than 40 manufacturers, the FAMES pilot line will be open to major groups, as well as SMEs, start-ups and research communities. It will provide access to a state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure to anticipate the production of the next generation of chips, and to design, prototype and test demonstrators of future products that will enter production in several years’ time. It will accelerate innovation in five key technologies developed by CEA and its partners (CEZAMAT WUT (Poland), Fraunhoffer (Germany), Grenoble INP-UGA (France), Imec (Belgium), Silicon Austria Labs (Austria), SiNANO Institute (France),Tyndall (Ireland), University of Granada (Spain), Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), VTT (Finland)): FD-SOI, embedded non-volatile memories, RF components, 3D integration and small inductors for DC-DC conversion.
These technologies have been identified as crucial for meeting the industrial needs of today and tomorrow: automotive, telecom networks, AI, industry 5.0, but also newspace or quantum. They should help Europe strengthen its microelectronics industry and maintain its position as a leading power. The new uses and services it will produce, accelerated by FAMES, will support the competitiveness of the industrial fabric as well as the continent’s strategic autonomy, while responding to environmental challenges. The line should enable the creation of new generations of more energy-efficient, higher-performance semiconductors.
FAMES is one of five pilot lines supported under the Chips Act, which aims to support the European semiconductor industry by encouraging collaboration between the EU, member states and the private sector. As a key player in the semiconductor industry, the CEA is the only research organization to participate in all these lines. By piloting FAMES, the CEA will be able to strengthen R&D in key technologies that it has been developing and mastering for several years, and to defend its European vision of microelectronics that is more efficient, more sober and less impactful on the planet.
François Jacq, CEA Director General, comments: “The European Commission has entrusted us with the task of federating players around our Lab to Fab model, preparing and transferring technologies while anticipating the needs of industrial partners for their future products. To achieve this, we will be working with everyone – academia and industry, from start-ups to major corporations – to create real value chains at European level through R&D and the associated training efforts.”
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