Europractice 2.0

ongoing

The Europractice 2.0 project will provide Europe with a robust infrastructure for chip design innovation from day one. It will build on 30 years of evolution of renowned Europractice services, consolidating and extending them to offer users an affordable, open-access framework for designing and fabricating chips. The primary goal will be to lower the entry barriers for universities, research institutes, and their spinouts by providing affordable access to industry-standard design tools, fabrication technologies, and comprehensive training. This will be complemented with extensive customer support covering technical and operational aspects. Europractice 2.0 will immediately deliver impact by supporting 600 universities and research institutes annually with affordable design tools. The project will facilitate design IP exchange between users to expedite the design process. The project will offer fabrication services in 90 technologies from various suppliers based on the cost-sharing multi-project wafer (MPW) principle, complemented by packaging and heterogeneous integration techniques. The portfolio will be continuously updated with advanced and emerging technologies from European research centres and Chips JU pilot lines. To address the semiconductor skills gap, Europractice 2.0 will train over 650 participants annually, increasing the impact through a train-the-trainer initiative. Simplified design flows and shared tapeouts for ClassIC student chips will further lower entry barriers and expand hands-on learning. Europractice 2.0 will also play a key role in nurturing academic spinouts during their incubation phase. Close collaboration with the EU Chips Design Platform will ensure a seamless transition to acceleration and commercialisation, creating a clear, structured path from research to market and contributing to the long-term growth and resilience of Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem