Consortium To Elevate European Silicon Market

Four of the leading European micro- and nanoelectronics regions are uniting to form the transnational, research-driven cluster "Silicon Europe -The Leaders for Energy Efficient ICT Electronics".

The cluster partners include four national consortia that all have established structures for the close cooperation of research, business and the authorities. This will fulfil the requirements of a "triple helix" consortium.

These clusters are "Silicon Saxony", centred around Dresden (Germany), "Point-One", based in Eindhoven (Netherlands), "Minalogic", centred in Grenoble (France), and "DSP Valley", centred around Leuven (Belgium).

The partners of Silicon Europe are linked by a common goal. They are focussed on securing Europe as the world's leading centre for energy efficient electronics. The consortium will make substantial contributions toward realising several partial goals.

The partner clusters in total have nearly 800 members (297 in Silicon Saxony, 204 in Minalogic, 170 in Point-One, 75 in DSP Valley). More than 75 percent of these are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and account for more than 150,000 jobs, thereby covering more than 60 percent of the respective jobs in Europe.

Other major research players such as imec (Belgium), CEA-Leti (France) and Fraunhofer (Germany) are active in the partner clusters. Also contributing are large companies such as Philips, NXP, Globalfoundries, Infineon, STMicroelectronics and Thales.

The established local cluster structures are close to one another. In Dresden, all respective partners are represented formally by Silicon Saxony. For the other regions the local/regional authorities became full partners as the respective cluster organisations cover research and business only. In total, there are 10 legal entities involved in the project.

The objectives of Silicon Europe are closely connected to the agenda of the European Union and significantly contribute to its programs.

For example, by intensifying the transnational collaboration between regional research-oriented competence clusters, Silicon Europe aims to make a substantial contribution to the EU's growth strategy for the coming decade, "Europe 2020".

Europe 2020's focus lies on the advancement of research and development. This includes the development of environmentally friendly technologies as well as activities to secure consistent economic growth. By joining their expertise, the Silicon Europe partners will also contribute to a number of sub-programmes to Europe 2020, the so-called "flagship initiatives". Two of these are listed below.

"A Digital Agenda for Europe" seeks to speed up the roll out of high-speed internet and to reap the benefits of a digital single market for households and firms. Advanced micro- and nanoelectronics play a significant role in reaching these goals.

"A Resource Efficient Europe" is designed to help decouple economic growth from the use of resources, by decarbonising the economy, increasing the usage of renewable sources, modernising the transport, and promoting energy efficiency.

Other flagship initiatives include, "An Industrial Policy for the Globalisation Era," which aims to improve the business environment, especially for SMEs, and to support the development of a strong, sustainable industrial base able to compete globally.

The second is, "An Agenda for New Skills and Jobs," which aims to modernise the labour market. Silicon Europe will strengthen the European micro- and nanoelectronics sector, by creating new and secure existing jobs.

The consortium also intends to spread know-how in Europe. Research institutes and universities would be able to access the newest technologies and engage with highly qualified competencies and staff. Also fabless design houses would be used for the development of new functionalities and/or architectures for micro- and nanoelectronics.

Opening up new markets and boosting competitiveness especially of SMEs, by improving innovation and technology transfer from research to market is another aim. This would be achieved by developing an internationalisation strategy inside and outside Europe, supported by the creation of a common identity for a (virtual) European semiconductor cluster.

A further challenge would be to improve resource and energy efficiency. Due to the emergence of developing and transitioning countries - particularly China and India - and the resulting rise in living standards of the population, world energy demand is dramatically increasing. According to Silicon Europe, by 2030, an increase by 50 percent to 160500 bn kWh is forecasted, and there is expected to be another doubling to 321,000 billion kWh by 2050.

Micro- and nanoelectronics are essential for all goods and services which need intelligent control in sectors as diverse as automotive and transportation, aeronautics and space. Smart industrial control systems permit more efficient management of electricity generation, storage, transport and consumption through intelligent electrical grids and devices.

As one of the key enabling technologies, However, the global competition is hard and Europe has a declining share of worldwide investments in microelectronics. From a total investment of €28 billion in microelectronics in 2007, only 10 percent was made in the EU compared to 48 percent in Asia.

And since 2000, Europe's semiconductor market share has declined from 21 percent to 16 percent. Despite this, total direct employment in microelectronics in Europe is over 110,000 plus 105,000 in equipment manufacturers.

Nevertheless, Europe has a number of dedicated regions with critical mass and particular semiconductor competencies which are globally renowned. These clusters, which jointly will implement Silicon Europe, address all application fields and have access to the most advanced technologies and are key assets for European industrial competiveness.

Ultimately, the European semiconductor industry will be boosted and thus enabled to take on the Asian and global challenge on the market.

Last but not least, the Silicon Europe initiative will raise the awareness of the importance of the European semiconductor industry in the wider public and authorities.

The capacity to generate innovations and successfully transfer them to the market is a key skill for Europe. This innovative force is decisive for the competitiveness and therefore ultimately for Europe's sustainability.

In order to maintain and strengthen Europe, securing the innovative ability must be equated with securing the future of Europe. It is a task to look far ahead into the future and to detect even weak signals in order to identify any resulting changes, to verify the relevance of these changes and assess them from a strategic viewpoint.

In order to reach the described goals and provide the desired results, the partners of Silicon Europe have designed different work packages. They will participate in the initiative's activities according to their expertise. A roadmap is shown below.