French research institute kicks off EUR 830m chips project

CEA-Leti is a technology research institute in Grenoble that pioneers micro and nanotechnologies, and tailors applicative solutions that ensure competitiveness in a wide range of markets such as healthcare, energy, transport and ICTs.

One of its pioneering initiatives is the FAMES Pilot Line. It offers European semiconductor stakeholders access to a slate of advanced semiconductor technologies, plus chip design, prototyping, testing, demonstration, and manufacturing capabilities. The project is part of EU Chips Act Initiative.

Now, the project has officially kicked off. Its initial task is to develop five new sets of technologies:

• FD-SOI (with two new generation nodes at 10nm and 7nm),
• Several types of embedded non-volatile memories (OxRAM, FeRAM, MRAM and FeFETs),
• Radio-frequency components (switches, filters and capacitors),
• Two 3D integration options (heterogeneous integration and sequential integration), and
• Small inductors to develop DC-DC converters for Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC). ​

The FAMES Consortium incudes: CEA-Leti, imec (Belgium), Fraunhofer Mikroelektronik (Germany), Tyndall (Ireland), VTT (Finland), CEZAMAT WUT (Poland), UCLouvain (Belgium), Silicon Austria Labs (Austria), SiNANO Institute (France), Grenoble INP-UGA (France), and the University of Granada (Spain). Meanwhile another 43 companies, from startups and SMEs to global corporations, have formally expressed their support for the FAMES pilot line.

“By integrating and combining a set of cutting-edge technologies, the FAMES Pilot Line will open the door to disruptive system-on-chip architectures and provide smarter, greener and more efficient solutions for future chips. The FAMES project will indeed pay special attention to semiconductor sustainability challenges," said Jean-René Lèquepeys, CTO of CEA-Leti.