Connect Group, Key Industrial Partner of Next-Gen Chips to Secure EU Supply Chain

By aligning with the European Chips Act, the Group secures the strategic supply chain with market-ready, radiation-hardened semiconductors for critical sectors like Defence & Aerospace.

Connect Group is reinforcing its crucial role as a primary industrial partner in the race for Europe's digital sovereignty. The continent currently imports over 75% of its semiconductors, creating strategic vulnerabilities exposed during recent global crises.

The group is leading the technology transfer for the SoC4CRIS-II project, a vital initiative developed within the framework of the Basque Microelectronics Hub (BMH) strategy to manufacture a new generation of advanced, highly resilient semiconductors. These chips, essential for critical applications in space, industry, and energy, will be designed under the open-source RISC-V architecture and manufactured exclusively in Europe.

The initiative is framed within the Basque Government’s Elkartek aid program and is led by the APERT applied electronics research group from the University of the Basque Country (EHU). The strong consortium also includes leading technology centers: CEIT, Tekniker, Ikerlan, and Tecnalia, as well as Connect Group and the GAIA-BMH cluster.

As the main industrial collaborator, Connect Group plays the vital role of the Industrial Accelerator, ensuring academic breakthroughs translate directly into commercial reality.

Connect Group provides the essential real-world, industrial perspective. Their involvement is key to ensuring that the complex, high-tech designs emerging from the laboratory are practical, scalable, and fully prepared to be market-ready and used in demanding sectors like aerospace and defense. The Group acts as the guarantor of commercial viability and scalability.

SoC4CRIS-II takes over from the successful SoC4CRIS project, which achieved the region's first complex chip design based on RISC-V, integrating industrial communications, artificial vision, and functional safety.

Connect Group's active participation in SoC4CRIS-II provides a significant competitive edge, directly benefiting both the company’s capabilities and its global clientele:

For Connect Group:

• Assured Technological Leadership: The project guarantees early access and direct knowledge transfer regarding next-generation microelectronics design flows and advanced assembly and validation techniques, particularly those relevant to the aerospace and defense sectors.
• This strategic insight ensures Connect Group remains ahead of the curve, strengthening its in-house expertise and ability to handle the most demanding technology projects.

For Clients:

• Competitive Edge and Supply Resilience: Clients gain immediate access to more reliable and cutting-edge solutions. By validating the chip designs and assembly processes, Connect Group ensures clients can integrate secure Made in Europe solutions with enhanced features faster.
• This translates into products that are more competitive, more secure, and less vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions, thanks to the commitment to using European-manufactured semiconductors.
• Key advanced features include cosmic radiation resilience (vital for satellites) and fast Artificial Vision processing.

Simply put, Connect Group acts as the essential link that translates cutting-edge research into viable products, new business opportunities, and skilled employment for the wider European industry.

The Basque Country (Euskadi) continues to build its leadership strategy in microelectronics with SoC4CRIS-II, aiming to reinforce its digital autonomy. The previous phase successfully trained local teams in advanced microelectronics design flows, establishing Euskadi’s capacity in the field.

The new phase focuses on a significant qualitative leap with key objectives, directly tackling current market needs:

• European Industrial Production: Designing in advanced nodes (22 nm) and using advanced European foundries (such as Global Foundries in Germany) to transition from prototype to scalable manufacturing, ensuring regional control over the supply chain.
• Extreme Resilience (Aerospace): Designing architectures inherently resistant to cosmic radiation (radiation-hardened), a critical capability for the space sector and other high-reliability applications.
• Edge AI: Integrating specialized Artificial Vision Coprocessors to enable ultra-fast and efficient image and video processing in complex Industrial 4.0 environments.
• Quantum Communications Gateway: Developing processors synchronized at the sub-nanosecond level, paving the way for distributed quantum analysis and new forms of conventional-quantum hybrid communication.
• New Assembly Techniques: Focused on developing new chip assembly and validation techniques for electronic boards, particularly geared towards the aerospace sector, strengthening research transfer to the market.

This initiative is fully aligned with the goal of the European Chips Act to double Europe's global semiconductor market share to 20% by 2030. This strong public-private partnership, with Connect Group driving the industrial viability, is critical for establishing Euskadi as a center of excellence in microelectronics and securing a stronger, more independent digital future for all of Europe.

The collaboration allows for progress toward a competitive microelectronics ecosystem, capable of designing, validating, and transferring new-generation chips to the market. This effort not only reinforces regional technological sovereignty but also opens up new business opportunities and skilled employment in a sector strategic for the future economy.