IC-DASH

The IC-DASH (Design Acceleration & Services Hub) project is a one-stop shop that support European fabless start-ups and SMEs in growing their business and bringing new chip ideas to market. It speeds up and simplify the process of developing and testing chip designs, from early concepts to pilot production, helping turn bold ideas into real products. Uniting leading industry and research partners in semiconductors, IC-DASH offers full end-to-end support across the entire chip design value chain. This includes chip emulation, EDA support, IC design expertise, silicon manufacturing, packaging, and testing facilities. By providing these services in one place, the hub helps fabless companies innovate faster and move smoothly from prototypes to large-scale production. IC-DASH will support the design of energy-efficient, trustworthy, and intelligent embedded and edge systems that are essential for ensuring strategic autonomy in key markets such as automotive, aerospace, telecommunications, defense, healthcare, or industrial automation. It promotes eco-friendly RF, analogue, high voltage, power, mixed-signal, and digital chip design, while enabling integration of heterogeneous technologies. The hub will provide early access to advanced process nodes, including Silicon-On-Insulator (PD-SOI, FD-SOI) and embedded Non-Volatile Memory (eNVM) technologies, ideal for low power consumption and efficient wireless connectivity, through industrial foundries such as Global Foundries, X-FAB, and STMicroelectronics, as well as the FAMES pilot line. Overall, the project aims to establish and operate a secure, sustainable ecosystem that lowers financial and technical barriers for start-ups, SMEs. This will drive innovation in digital systems and services, in alignment with EuroCDP priorities.