Cost reduction for MPW runs for European universities

Determine practical and sustainable mechanisms to reduce the cost of multi-project wafer (MPW) runs for university chip design projects in Europe, particularly within the Europractice ecosystem, to enable broader academic access to advanced technology nodes for education and research.

Background

Europractice is described as the cornerstone of academic chip design across Europe, providing universities with access to EDA tools, libraries, PDKs, IP, and MPW services. Despite this availability, the authors emphasize that significant barriers remain, notably the high costs of MPW runs for universities, which are often not covered by research funding and limit participation in advanced technology nodes.

In their recommendations, the authors call for strengthening Europractice and explicitly identify cost reduction for MPW runs as an unresolved issue. They suggest potential approaches such as corporate sponsorship programs similar to the Efabless Open MPW Program and industry-funded support models, highlighting the need for concrete, feasible solutions to address this gap.