Access to the NanoIC pilot line
The impact of the NanoIC pilot line stems from its ability to offer the semiconductor ecosystem low-barrier and flexible access to advanced chip technologies.
Depending on your role within the value chain, you can tap into the NanoIC pilot line infrastructure and expertise for:
Access to R&D
The NanoIC pilot line offers early insights into advanced technology options for industry actors such as:
- Automotive OEMs looking to take the lead in advanced chiplet development.
- Telecommunication OEMS wanting to investigate the system impact of leading-edge CMOS technologies.
- Health and pharma innovators requiring powerful compute capabilities for applications such as next-gen sequencing, advanced genomics, and proteomics.
- IDMs and foundries in the process of working out their future processing flows.
- Materials and equipment suppliers exploring novel process module options for advanced tech nodes.
Open, pre-competitive and full-stack innovation is one of the driving principles behind the NanoIC pilot line. It’s an environment where all these ecosystem players meet early in the R&D process, to discuss and align on the most promising technological strategies.
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Access to design exploration
With each new technology node, the design complexity grows. What’s more, the design community – including fabless semiconductor companies – increasingly relies on the customization of the full stack of technologies (system-technology co-optimization) to maximize performance.
For a rapid adoption of these advanced technologies, it’s therefore crucial that designers get timely access to design pathfinding PDKs, such as the one for the N2 node launched in 2024. This offers them the opportunity to gain advance insights into the newest technology options – including system-level understanding.
These design pathfinding PDKs associated with the beyond-2nm baseline will be developed and shared through imec.IC-link with academia and the design community for virtual prototyping. They will be embedded in the software suites of EDA vendors who can take the opportunity to prepare their tools and flows for the next generation of CMOS nodes.
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Access to prototyping
One important goal of the NanoIC pilot line is to reach a TRL of 4-6 for the beyond-2nm baseline flows. This will enable the industry, especially start-ups and scale-ups, to perform device or system prototyping to demonstrate the viability of their technology.
Prototyping services will be offered to enable companies to combine technologies from the NanoIC pilot line with chips from commercial foundries through wafer post-processing. These services will be offered through imec.IC-link and European initiatives including EUROPRACTICE.
The available NanoIC pilot line technologies include 3D interconnects, optical interconnects with silicon photonics, and novel memory technologies. Even low-volume production would become possible, with a fluent transfer to volume manufacturing.
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Access to education and workforce development
Its abundance of skilled talent has always been one of the drivers behind Europe’s achievements in the semiconductor domain. The NanoIC pilot line strives to consolidate and expand that competitive advantage.
Access to affordable design tools and prototyping services is of utmost importance for university students that want to gain first-hand experience with advanced technologies. That’s why the NanoIC pilot line will make its PDKs available to the EUROPRACTICE initiative that already offers design courses and discounted EDA tools to academia.
Furthermore, a variety of initiatives contributes to European semiconductor education and workforce development:
- In collaboration with the EU Competence Centers, the NanoIC pilot line will develop up-to-date courses in classroom and virtual formats.
- The NanoIC pilot line will be open to internships and dual-learning programs with students from regular curricula, and industry-oriented trainings for Masters and PhDs.
- Conversely, high-potential employees of the pilot line are incentivized to embark on PhD studies at an associated research university.