The collaborative effort with South Korea comes as a strategic action to set a framework which will strengthen the relationship and collaboration between research and innovation players in both jurisdictions.

The Republic of Korea and the European Commission launched the Digital Partnership in June 2023 to strengthen the economic resilience and agreed on key outcomes to advance cooperation for an inclusive and resilient digital transformation. Both partners agreed to work on semiconductors, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Quantum technology, 5G and beyond, platform economy, artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. Joint research on semiconductors implemented in low TRL collaborative project emerged as a concrete action in the follow-up exchanges between the European Commission and the Korean government.

With this joint call for proposals, the Republic of Korea and the EU intend to set a framework:

• To strengthen the relation between R&I players in both jurisdictions
• To undertake joint R&I for EU and Korean R&I teams by cooperating in pre-competitive projects on areas which are in the interest of both jurisdictions.
• To build trust for further cooperation.

Proposals should:

• Address research reaching TRL of 4 with high potential not yet demonstrated in the design, fabrication process and/or packaging segments of the micro-nano-electronics or photonics value chain and their related integration technologies.
• Focus innovation on materials, physical concepts or device architecture building on neuromorphic or integration technologies.
• Provide a projection of the expected gains and main figures of merit of the proposed approaches.
• Multi-disciplinary research activities should address part of the semiconductor value chain from materials, processes, equipment, metrology, back-end processing to packaging, integration and tests.

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• New materials, process, device, integration and design concepts for neuromorphic computing systems supporting very low energy consumption, connectivity and embedded functions for mobile applications.
• Alternative manufacturing process technologies for semiconductor chips including frontend or backend for heterogenous integration.
• Advanced packaging solutions aiming at heterogeneous integration of multiple functions and materials for applications in AI, communication (RF, mmW or THz), sensing, actuating, power management and active/passive device integration.

For more information about this call please visit the Chips JU Work Programme 2023-2027 and Annexes – Appendix 3, page 68.