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ID: 104611394609-34
Lobbying Activity
Response to Evaluation and Revision of the Chips Act ("Chips Act 2.0")
27 Nov 2025
European Union should take a strategic, long-term approach in revising the Chips Act by prioritizing investments in chip design competence, reinforcing existing pilot lines, and ensuring sustainable funding for research and education. The foundation of a resilient semiconductor ecosystem begins with design. Manufacturing success depends on a strong base of skilled designers and design companies, especially in fabless models where design is decoupled from fabrication. Europes competitive edge lies in its application domain expertise. To maintain and grow this advantage, the EU must invest in design competence first. Without a robust design ecosystem, investments in advanced CMOS manufacturing facilities are premature and risky. The EU currently has only a handful of companies designing the most advanced CMOS nodes, with Nokia being one of the few. Building up design capabilities is essential to attract fabless companies and eventually justify large-scale manufacturing investments. Pilot lines established under the first Chips Act must be continuously supported and upgraded. They serve as platforms for innovation, enabling companies to prototype and commercialize new technologies. However, their success depends on ensuring that design companies have the resources and tools to access and utilize them effectively. Bridging the gap between design and manufacturing through improved design kits and integration is critical. On top of that, more European companies should be exploiting own chips in their portfolios. Currently many companies use off-the-shelf components or programmable general-purpose chips manufactured outside EU. To encourage companies to design their own chips, there should be financial support for pilot projects. Successful company pilots with the European pilot lines will show the companies that they can rely on European design competence and manufacturing capability. This is essential for securing the European self-sufficiency in semiconductors. In addition, the EU must place greater emphasis on advanced packaging and system integration. These areas are increasingly central to semiconductor performance, enabling compact, energy-efficient, and high-speed solutions. Packaging and integration are no longer peripheral concernsthey are strategic technologies that determine competitiveness in domains such as AI, communications, automotive, and edge computing. Europe must invest in infrastructure and R&D for heterogeneous integration, chiplet architectures, and photonic interconnects to remain globally relevant. Current funding mechanisms are too short-term and overly focused on immediate industrial needs. Academic research and education, which are vital for long-term competence development, are underfunded and lack strategic support. We call for stable, long-term funding that spans multiple election cycles and supports doctoral programs, competence centers, and academic-industry collaboration. Doctoral education must be rigorous and forward-looking; three-year programs are insufficient for producing the highest level of expertise needed in industrial and academic settings. Europe must also balance its investments between advanced CMOS and specialized technologies such as photonics, RF, MEMS, quantum, and advanced materials. These areas offer significant growth potential and global competitiveness. By supporting both emerging and established sectors, EU can build technological sovereignty and resilience across the semiconductor value chain. Manufacturing capability alone is not sufficient as technology without design tools will be useless. New tools are also essential for unconventional computing paradigms, e.g., quantum and neuromorphic. Advances are also needed to support software/hardware co-design. We advocate for a coordinated European strategy that pools the strengths of different regions and commits to a long-term vision for microelectronics. This enables EU to secure its position in critical sectors.
Read full responseMeeting with Valentina Schaumburger (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné)
18 Sept 2025 · Competitiveness of EU businesses
Meeting with Anniina Iskanius (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen)
6 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on the Chips Act and Defence White Paper