Joint Education for Advanced Chip Design in Europe

ongoing

"The worldwide chip shortage has put a growing challenge in Europe in the spotlight: Due to economic trends of the past years, chips are nowadays mainly manufactured outside Europe, making European core industries depend on global supply chains. As a consequence, Europe has started several initiatives to counter this problem. Among others, the European Chips Act promotes the sovereignty of the EU in chip design and manufacture. National efforts to grow the chip design capabilities complement these strains. However, the efforts will not succeed if there is a lack of skilled professionals for chip design. The project ""Joint Education for Advanced Chip Design in Europe"" (Edu4Chip) enhances the chip design capability in Europe by designing and implementing harmonized study programs at excellent universities in Europe and growing this way the number of chip design experts. The programs’ unique characteristic is that students will carry out a complete chip design, starting from the high-level description of the hardware and ending with the actual manufacturing (i.e., tape-out) and test of their chips. Experts from a research institute and from industry will accompany the project and support the education of future chip designers. In this, the programs are designed for compatibility, simplifying the student exchange between European countries. The project is complemented by life-long learning modules, open for training on the job and lateral entry employees. Edu4Chip aims to train more than 150 European and 100 non-European students per year for a career in the European chip design industry. A strong collaboration with industrial partners allows for excellent education and preparation for their employment and helps to bring students into the European job market. Trainees in the programs will also have the opportunity to specialize in chip design within a specific direction, such as for low-power design fostering sustainability, secure hardware design, or design for AI. "