EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for the "International Cooperation in Semiconductors (CSA)" Call

1. Single Market Access

Why it matters: Europe offers the world’s second-largest integrated market (450+ million consumers, €16 trillion GDP).

Grant-specific edge:

• The CSA can promote mutual recognition of design, packaging and testing standards across all 27 Member States, accelerating time-to-market for EU-fabricated chips.

• Mapping and risk-analysis deliverables can be reused by SMEs and large firms to optimise EU-wide supply chains (e.g. balancing lithography capacity in NL/BE with assembly in PT/RO).

• Evidence from the project feeds directly into the European Semiconductor Board, shaping future Single Market rules (Chips Act art. 6) and reducing regulatory friction for beneficiaries.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration

• Consortia incentives: Horizon CSAs require at least three legal entities from three different Member/Associated States, automatically creating a pan-European cooperation structure.

• Technology complementation:

• DE/NL mastery in EUV lithography + FI/SE compound-semiconductor research + IT/FR photonics packaging = end-to-end know-how unachievable nationally.

• Knowledge exchange channels: Grant budget can finance joint workshops, researcher mobility, and standardisation taskforces, embedding open innovation and reducing duplication.

• Diplomatic leverage: A single EU voice (backed by coordinated evidence) carries more weight in Japan-EU or US-EU semiconductor dialogues than 27 separate voices.

3. Alignment with EU Flagship Policies

• Digital Europe / Chips Act: Results feed the EU Chips Act monitoring obligations (Art. 21 on international cooperation).

• Strategic Autonomy & Open Strategic Autonomy (OSA): Mapping of over-capacities & export-control regimes supports the Trade & Technology Council (TTC) and EU Economic Security Strategy.

• Green Deal & Circular Electronics: Supply-chain mapping can integrate carbon-footprint data, enabling eco-design and circularity benchmarks for mainstream chips ≥28 nm.

• Skills Agenda & ERA Policy: Mobility actions align with Europass & ERA-Talent Platform, fostering a pan-EU talent pool in semiconductor physics, photonics and risk analysis.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Standards leadership: Coordinated EU input to ISO/IEC JTC 1, IEEE & IEC TC 47 increases the probability that EU-proposed standards (e.g. silicon-photonics interfaces) become global norms.

• State-Aid Consistency: Evidence from the CSA can underpin Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) notifications, easing approval of complementary fab investments.

• Security & Export Control Coherence: Comparative study on third-country controls enables the Commission to propose EU-wide dual-use updates, avoiding a patchwork of national rules.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Research Infrastructures: Participants can plug into EuroHPC JU systems (e.g. LUMI, Leonardo) for chip-design simulation data; access would be cost-prohibitive individually.

• Living Labs & Pilot Lines: Synergies with Chips JU pilot lines (sub-6 nm, photonics, FDSOI) enable rapid validation of cooperation ideas identified by the CSA.

• Clusters & EDIHs: European Digital Innovation Hubs can act as multipliers, cascading CSA findings to >3000 SMEs working on edge AI and IoT.

6. Funding Synergies

• Horizon Europe Cluster 4 RIA/IA Calls: Evidence can shape future technology topics (e.g. 2027 heterogeneous integration flagship), positioning partners for follow-up funding.

• Digital Europe Programme (DEP): DEP can co-finance training modules and common data spaces derived from the CSA’s supply-chain mapping.

• Regional Funds & IPCEI: Smart-Specialisation Regions (RIS3) may embed CSA outputs in ERDF innovation priorities, accelerating fab expansions in cohesion regions.

• EIB & InvestEU: Risk-analysis deliverables provide due-diligence material for semiconductor equity or debt instruments.

7. Scale and Impact Potential

• Policy Uptake: Direct interface with the European Semiconductor Board ensures that project recommendations can be transposed into delegated acts without delay.

• Pan-EU Deployment: Standardised cooperation templates (NDAs, IP clauses, researcher-exchange MoUs) created by the CSA can be adopted by >1,000 European chip firms.

• Resilience Metrics: EU-wide risk dashboards (geo-economic & techno-logical) can become a permanent service under the Chips Act Observatory, benefitting all Member States.

8. Unique Strategic Value of EU-Level Operation

1. Critical Mass: Only the EU can match the scale of US and Asian semiconductor ecosystems; a national-only CSA would lack bargaining power.

2. Distributed Excellence: Semiconductors require cross-disciplinary expertise scattered across Europe; the grant’s cross-border requirement knits these nodes into a coherent value chain.

3. One-Stop Interface for Third Countries: Partner nations prefer negotiating with an EU-coordinated consortium, reducing transaction costs and duplication.

4. Inherent Compliance & Trust: EU procurement, data-protection and ethics frameworks embed “trustworthy tech by design,” enhancing global credibility.

9. Actionable Opportunities for Applicants

• Build tri-regional consortia combining (a) technology RTOs, (b) policy think-tanks, (c) standardisation bodies.

• Integrate carbon and circularity KPIs into supply-chain mapping to tap Green Deal synergies.

• Leverage EU tech infrastructures (e.g. IMEC pilot lines, Leti clean-rooms) for evidence gathering—access costs are eligible under Horizon rules.

• Plan follow-up RIAs on silicon-photonic interposers or neuromorphic packaging to align with Chips JU calls.

• Use DEP & Erasmus+ for researcher-mobility top-ups, extending the CSA’s reach without extra budget pressure.

10. Conclusion

The "International Cooperation in Semiconductors (CSA)" call offers far more than a standard coordination grant. By operating at EU scale, consortia gain unrivalled access to the Single Market, an integrated talent pipeline, harmonised regulations, and the political clout necessary to shape global semiconductor norms. Properly executed, the project can become the backbone of Europe’s external semiconductor diplomacy while simultaneously strengthening the internal ecosystem—an advantage no single Member State programme could replicate.