New European projects started in 2021

TRANSFORM has the overarching goal to build a complete and highly competitive European supply chain for power electronics based on Silicon Carbide (SiC) power semiconductors. The application space and the needs are huge and range from industrial drives and power conversion over renewable energy to electric mobility. A trusted and strong European supply-chain for these application domains is paramount for enabling a holistic optimization of power electronic systems required for a cleaner and sustainable European economy.

Energy ECS aims to develop intelligent and safe energy solutions for future mobility and the transition to green energy. Partners will develop a wide range of technologies including, for example, battery charging electronics, network and sensor power management, energy collection, real-time location controls and sensors. Research and development within the project will also apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, immersive technologies, IoT, very low power technologies, advanced algorithms and software. All technologies will be designed with cybersecurity and reliability in their insome.

GaN4AP has the ambitious goal of making gallium nitride (GaN)-based electronics the primary technology for active devices in all power conversion systems. A pervasive use of GaN electronics will allow the possibility of developing power electronic systems with energy losses close to zero, an objective that is perfectly in line with the Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27 / EU) of the European Commission which literally quotes the following "... making better use of energy – through the organisation and modernisation of our buildings, energy and transport systems and industrial processes, kicking off the energy efficiency market, using new services, technologies, materials and financing instruments and promoting behavioural change." Concretely, the project GaN4AP aims at the development of innovative power electronic systems, the development of innovative material, the development of a new generation of Vertical Power Devices based on GaN and the development of new intelligent and integrated GaN solutions (STi2GaN) both in System in Package (SiP) and with monolithic solutions. The development of these new technologies of innovative power supply devices and circuits, using GaN-based devices, is a crucial factor for the global competitiveness of EU industries. The support of the research activities in this project will allow us to lay the foundations for the production of next-generation power electronics technology in Europe and the world.

StorAIge objective is the development and industrialization of FDSOI 28nm and next generation embedded Phase Change Memory (ePCM) world-class semiconductor technologies, allowing the prototyping of high performance, Ultra low power and secured & safety System on Chip (SoC) solutions enabling competitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Edge applications. The main challenge addressed by the project is on one hand to handle the complexity of sub-28nm ‘more than moore’ technologies and to bring them up at a high maturity level and on the other hand to handle the design of complex SoCs for more intelligent, secure, flexible, low power consumption and cost effective. The project is targeting chipset and solutions with very efficient memories and high computing power targeting 10 Tops per Watt. The development of the most advanced automotive microcontrollers in FDSOI 28nm ePCM will be the support technology to demonstrate the high performances path as well as the robustness of the ePCM solution. The next generation of FDSOI ePCM will be main path for general purpose advanced microcontrollers usable for large volume Edge AI application in industrial and consumer markets with the best compromise on three requirements: performances, low power and adequate security. On top of the development and industrialization of silicon process lines and SoC design, storAIge will also address new design methodologies and tools to facilitate the exploitation of these advanced technology nodes, particularly for high performance microcontrollers having AI capabilities. Activities will be performed to setup robust and adequate Security and Safety level in the final applications, defining and implementing the good ‘mixture’ and tradeoff between HW and SW solutions to speed up adoption for large volume applications.

ARCES participates in all projects as a linked third party with the IU.NET consortium.