The Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU) has opened a joint call for international collaboration between Europe and Japan on semiconductors, focusing on the development of a strong chiplet ecosystem for AI and advanced semiconductor process technologies for nodes beyond 2nm.

The call is designed to bring together European and Japanese organisations to advance semiconductor technologies, strengthen industrial cooperation and support the development of next-generation chip architectures.

Funding Available

Indicative EU budget: €5 million

Expected EU contribution per project: approximately €3 million–€5 million

The call is implemented as a Simple Grant (SG) under the Digital Europe Programme and is co-funded with the relevant national funding authorities.

Focus of the Call

Projects should focus on:

• Advanced heterogeneous integration, particularly 2.5D and 3D packaging
• Integrated photonics supporting AI functionalities
• Chiplet co-optimisation and interface design
• Standardised chiplet interfaces and interoperability
• Advanced semiconductor process technologies for nodes beyond 2nm
• Technologies supporting next-generation high-performance and energy-efficient semiconductor devices

Expected Outcomes

Projects are expected to contribute to:

• Advanced heterogeneous integration for AI applications
• Standardised chiplet interfaces enabling interoperability
• A stronger and more dynamic chiplet ecosystem
• Solutions with direct and immediate impact on European industry
• Validation of technologies in laboratory and pilot environments
• Verification through semiconductor manufacturing use cases
• Knowledge transfer through industry workshops, publications and networking activities

The centre of gravity of the proposed work should address Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 5–7.

Who Can Apply?

The call is intended for organisations active in the semiconductor and electronic components ecosystem, including:

• Large companies
• SMEs and start-ups
• Research and technology organisations
• Universities and other eligible research organisations
• Other eligible public or private legal entities

Proposals are expected to involve European and Japanese partners, with Japanese participants working through the corresponding Japanese funding arrangements.

Participants must meet the applicable Digital Europe, Chips JU and national funding eligibility requirements.

Consortium Requirements

Projects will be implemented as multi-beneficiary consortia involving relevant European and Japanese organisations.

Consortium partners should bring complementary expertise across the semiconductor value chain and demonstrate the capacity to deliver the proposed technical activities and industrial outcomes.

A consortium agreement is mandatory for funded Chips JU projects and should address matters including intellectual property protection and internal arrangements between partners.

Participation Restrictions

This call is subject to ownership and control restrictions designed to protect European digital infrastructures, communication and information systems, and related supply chains.

Participants that are not validated as public bodies by the European Commission's Central Validation Service must complete the required Ownership Control Declaration.

Application Requirements

Proposals must be submitted as a one-stage Full Project Proposal (FPP) through the EU electronic submission system.

Mandatory application components include:

• Application Form Part A
• Application Form Part B
• Ownership Control Declarations, where applicable
• National Budget Table
• Required supporting documents and annexes

Applicants must ensure that all mandatory documents are uploaded correctly, as missing mandatory annexes can result in the proposal being considered inadmissible.

Evaluation

Proposals are assessed against the call's award criteria covering areas including:

• Relevance
• Implementation
• Impact

For this call, the Impact criterion has a weighting factor of 1.5 in the ranking process.

Important Dates

Opening date: 7 July 2026
Application deadline: 8 December 2026, 17:00 Brussels time

Geographic Scope

European Union and Japan, with participation subject to the applicable Digital Europe and national eligibility rules.

Important Applicant Information

Applicants should pay particular attention to the country-specific national funding rules, ownership and control requirements, consortium composition and mandatory annexes.

The project budget must be balanced and supported by sufficient resources to successfully implement the proposed activities.

Contact
For all IT questions related to the Portal Submission System, the applicants are advised to contact the IT Helpdesk as soon as possible after they encountered problems with the portal. In order to facilitate the handling of the case by the IT help desk team applicants are encouraged to describe the problem as clearly as possible and add screen shots with the error messages received.

For non-IT related questions applicants can contact the Chips Ju calls team: Calls@chips-ju.europa.eu, clearly referencing of the call to which the question relates (see cover page). Our office run multiple calls at the same time, with different funding mechanisms (HE, DEP), different conditions (eligibility, admissibility) therefore it is of outmost importance to know to which call the inquiry relates in order to provide timely help/answers to the applicants

Please note that the deadline for the DIGITAL-JU-Chips-2026-SG-JAPAN call has been postponed.

The new deadline is now December 8th, 2026 (originally September 24th, 2026).

Click HERE to visit the official website.