NanoIC pilot line: accelerating beyond-2nm innovation across the ecosystem

Autonomous vehicles, personalized medicine, 6G networks, robotics, and quantum computing are all driven by the next generation of semiconductor technologies, including breakthroughs like systems-on-chip based on beyond-2nm logic nodes.  These innovations are of strategic importance since they have the potential to catalyze the transformation toward a sustainable society while fostering employment and economic growth. The whole semiconductor ecosystem will need to collaborate to enable core technological breakthroughs, elevating these to higher levels of maturity, and introducing them into cutting-edge products and services. The European Chips Act supports this through pilot lines for advanced semiconductor technologies.  The pilot line for the development of beyond-2nm systems-on-chip (SoC), the NanoIC pilot line, is hosted by imec.  As the world’s leading semiconductor R&D hub, imec has built up a unique infrastructure over the last 40 years, including the world’s most advanced 300mm cleanroom for research purposes. The NanoIC pilot line will extend this infrastructure, enabling the industry to explore beyond-2nm system-on-chip technologies. These SoCs are built around the most advanced logic technology node, combined with next-generation memory and cutting-edge optical and electrical interconnects. This presentation will elaborate the benefits for the ecosystem of this truly pan-European endeavor.