European Space GaN (ESGAN) aims to develop a 200V Enhancement mode GaN transistor (normally off) for use in power management circuits for space applications. The advantages obtained from Gallium Nitride (GaN) such as reduced mass, increased efficiency and the potential of radiation hardness are well known and the project will aim to exploit these in the development of the technology. Devices will be designed, produced, tested for radiation effects, thermal effects, structural effects and reliability performance and will be demonstrated in an application to verify the desired performance. The end goal will be to proceed with a space evaluation leading to a space qualification of the produced devices. Another of the principal objectives is to establish and exercise a fully capable, committed European Supply Chain to remove dependency from other countries and geographical regions. To achieve the goals of the project a strong consortium has been established in which the members cover each of the stages of the supply chain. The consortium is composed of the following companies. AIXTRON, a company dedicated to the design and manufacture of equipment to grow advanced substrates for GaN transistors. SEMI ZABALA, a company dedicated to the design, test and packaging of GaN transistors and integrated circuits. X-FAB, a semiconductor foundry company that has developed and offers processing services for GaN transistors. AIRBUS DEFENCE & SPACE, are one of Europe´s leading companies dedicated to the design and manufacture of satellite equipment and systems. The consortium covers an end to end supply chain from materials, design, processing packaging and test through to end users.

In a multi-disciplinary approach, FIXIT aims at the development of a disruptive, ferroelectric ultra-low power memory and computing technology, fostering the hardware implementation of novel AI-driven electronic systems. Ferroelectricity is the most energy-efficient non-volatile storage technology. FIXIT leverages two recent European discoveries of CMOS compatible ferroelectric materials: ferroelectric HfO2 as first reported in 2011 by NaMLab – the coordinator of FIXIT, and ferroelectric wurtzite AlScN discovered by the Project partner CAU in 2019. Our major goal is the scaling of ferroelectric synaptic devices to the <20nm regime while maintaining their analogue and multi-level switching properties. Moreover, we aim at the integration of these scaled devices into ultra-dense crossbar arrays featuring non-volatile multi-bit digital functionality and highly parallel multiply and accumulate operations, representing the synaptic interconnects calculation at the heart of AI-algorithms. In our consortium we build on the vast, interdisciplinary, and complementary expertise of the 11 project partners (3 industries, 1 SME, 4 universities, 3 RTOs) covering know-how on material, process and device development, CMOS integration, equipment and manufacturing, physical and electrical characterization, TCAD modelling, packaging, circuit design and system integration. Pushing European research in this topic will sustain the first-mover advantage and contribute to the European industry capability to provide advanced circuits for its needs. This is in-line with the European Chips Act, where the Commission has identified technological leadership in semiconductor technologies as indispensable for European digital sovereignty, and decided to support the field with large investments. FIXIT will also support Europe’s competitiveness in semiconductors with a systematic outreach to students, the training of young researchers and the building of international cooperation.

The LOMID project will define pathways to the manufacture of flexible OLED microdisplays with an exceptionally large area (16 mm x 20 mm, screen diagonal of 25.4 mm) at acceptably high yields (>65%). This will be achieved by developing a robust silicon-based chip design allowing high pixel counts (1024x1280 (SXGA)) and high spatial resolution(pixel sizes of 10 µm x 10 µm corresponding to 2000 ppi). These display innovations will be coupled to a highly reliable manufacturing of the backplane. Cheap processes (e.g. based on 0.35 µm lithography) will be developed and special attention will be given to the interface between the top metal electrode of the CMOS backplane and the subsequent OLED layers. All these developments will be done on a 200 mm wafer scale. Along with this, a new testing procedure for quality control of the CMOS wafer (prior to OLED deposition) will be developed and promoted for standardisation. The flexibility of the large area microdisplays will be achieved by wafer thinning to enable a bending radius of 45 mm. Along with the new functionality, the durability of the devices has to be guaranteed despite bending to be comparable to rigid devices. The project will address this by improving the OLED efficiency (e.g. operating lifetime > 15,000 hours) and by modifying the device encapsulation to both fulfil the necessary barrier requirements (WVTR < 10^-6 g/d m2) and to give sufficient mechanical protection. The demand for and timeliness of these flexible, large area microdisplays is shown by the strong interest of industrial integrators to demonstrate the benefits of the innovative OLED microdisplays. Within the project, industrial integrators will validate the project’s microdisplays in smart glasses for virtual reality and to aid those with impaired vision.

The increasing amount of data that has to be processed in today’s electronic devices requires a transition from the conventional compute centric paradigm to a more data centric paradigm. In order to bridge the existing gap between memory and logic units that is known as the classical von Neumann bottleneck the concept of physical separation between computing and memory unit has to be repealed. Neuro inspired architectures constitute a promising solution where both logic and memory functionality become synergized together in one synaptic unit. Our project BeFerroSynaptic addresses the specific challenges of the H2020-WP 2018-2020 by targeting for the development of electronic synaptic devices based on one of the most power-efficient memory technologies – the ferroelectric polarization switching. The ultimate goal of the BeFerroSynaptic project is to develop a ‘ferrosynaptic’ technology platform featuring back-end-of-line (BEOL) integrated Hf(Zr)O2-based ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) and ferroelectric tunnelling junctions (FTJs) on top of an existing CMOS technology. Our attempt is to demonstrate the feasibility (TRL 4) of the ‘ferrosynaptic’ concept in an extremely energy-efficient neuromorphic computing architecture. To ensure a realistic endeavour, the ambitious challenges will be tackled by building the complementary FTJ and FeFET device development on existing technologies and adapt it to BEOL integration on top of a CMOS technology, and building on existing neuromorphic processor designs that will be adapted to the ‘ferrosynaptic’ technology. The BeFerroSynaptic consortium assembles a significant amount of resources and expertise. It includes representatives both from the academic and research community as well as from industry. The consortium is composed of 11 partners, of which 5 RTOs partners (CEA, NaMLab, NCSRD, IUNET, HZB), 4 universities (UZH, ETH, UG, TUD as project consultant) and 2 industrial partners (X-FAB, IBM).

The “Advanced Distributed Pilot Line for More-than-Moore Technologies” project (ADMONT) is focused on a powerful and versatile More-than-Moore (MtM) pilot line for Europe increasing the diversification of CMOS process technologies. The combination of existing expertise, technological capabilities and the manufacturing capacity of industrial and research partners creates a whole new ecosystem within Europe’s biggest silicon technology cluster “Silicon Saxony”. The distributed pilot line utilizes various MtM platform technologies for sensor and OLED processing in combination with baseline CMOS processes in a unique way and incorporates 2.5D as well as 3D integration of silicon systems into one single production flow. The technology modules, equipment and processes are not located in one single clean room, but are distributed between partners located in Dresden. This local concentration of micro- and nanotechnology facilities has various advantages for potential customer since it enables a short production cycle time and fast delivery. Such distributed MtM pilot line is unique in Europe as well as worldwide and will be implemented as “one-stop-shop” for partners and customer. It is supported by advanced design technologies to address the challenges of modelling and simulation of MtM relevant aspects like reliability, degradation effects, process variability, and IT solution aspects for MtM smart fabrication, fab automation and data processing to generate a smart infrastructure. The distributed pilot line is working as an open platform and is able to integrate future technologies for autonomous and smart system solutions. ADMONT is focused on four main key applications: smart energy, smart mobility, smart health, and smart production and essential capabilities like semiconductor process equipment and materials, design technology and smart system integration. The project consortium is organized and working along the value chain for ECS technologies in Europe.