Funding Competition: Improving and Scaling-up Semiconductor Manufacturing – CR&D (UK)

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £12 million with the aim of:

• scaling up semiconductor manufacturing within the UK
• improving supply-chain resilience within the UK
• establishing innovations and new manufacturing techniques
• expanding capability or performance of existing manufacturing techniques
• encouraging relationships between product designers and manufacturers to develop new manufacturing techniques or expanding capability
• encouraging new collaborations across industry and academia

Specific Themes

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

• compound semiconductors
• silicon semiconductors
• development of Process Design Kits (PDKs)
• manufacturing process development
• device and circuit simulation and design
• manufacturing, packaging, assembly and test processes
• wafer fabrication operations sustainability
• hybridisation or heterogeneous development,
• system-on-chip development
• system-in-package development
• open access foundries models
• accelerate development cycles
• advanced or novel semiconductor packaging or integration techniques
• design for manufacturing
• design for assembly
• proof of concept and validation of designs
• test innovative designs and processes

Project Size

• Your project’s total costs must not exceed £2.5 million.

Projects they will not fund

• They are not funding projects where the primary focus or deliverable is:
  • standard printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication
  • PCB assembly and test, excluding bare die operations
• They cannot fund projects that are:
  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Who can apply?

• Your project
  • Your project must:
    • be industry lead
    • have project costs up to £2.5 million
    • start by 01 June 2024
    • end by 31 May 2025
    • last up to 12 months
    • carry out all of its project work in the UK
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
  • Your project must involve at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
• Project team
  • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
    • business of any size
    • academic institution
    • charity
    • not for profit
    • public sector organisation
    • research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project.
• Subcontractors
  • Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
  • Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
  • You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
  • You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
  • All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.