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Thomas Skordas was speaking at a conference in Antwerp about the
future of the initiative, which is Europe's answer to similar
programmes in the United States and Japan and to China's support
for its domestic computer chip makers.
The European Chips Act has led to "promises for investments of
the order of 100 billion euros to expand the manufacturing
capacity within the EU by 2030", Skordas said.
The European Union Chips Act, billed as offering funding of 43
billion euros, relies heavily on individual governments with the
Commission so far approving very little actual funding.
However, firms including Intel and TSMC have announced plans to
build plants in Germany at a cost of more than 30 billion euros
this year.
Skordas, an official at the Commission's digital unit, said the
commission expects to finalise funding for R&D pilot lines in
four sub-sectors of the chip industry by September, including a
2.5 billion euro grant for developing extremely advanced chips
in Europe.
Skordas said unspecified funding for another pilot line to
develop photonics, or chips that use light instead of
electricity, is still in the works.
The Commission is also arranging funding for a European design
platform to give companies, academics and startups access to the
software tools needed to design their own chips. Most advanced
chipmakers design chips but leave the manufacturing to
specialists such as TSMC, Samsung or Intel.
"In July, we expect to open the call for the consortium that
will be responsible for designing and developing this platform
at the European level," Skordas said.
($1 = 0.9224 euros)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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