EIC Portfolio “Responsible Electronics”: Reducing Environmental Impact & Strengthening EU Technology Sovereignty
As a project funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC), SUPERLASER is part of the Pathfinder Challenges 2023 Portfolio “Responsible Electronics”. This programme addresses fundamental scientific and technological challenges linked to the drastic rise in the production of electronics components and devices, predicted for 2050, and the corresponding increased use of raw materials and electronic waste.
The projects in the "Responsible Electronics" portfolio aim to significantly reduce the environmental footprint of the electronics industry. By transitioning from conventional industrial manufacturing to innovative, eco-friendly methods and materials, these projects align with the goals of the EU Circular Economy Action Plan. They support research emphasising effective waste management, carbon recycling, and the objectives of the European Chips Act.
Additionally, these projects will contribute to tackling Europe’s ongoing chips crisis by reducing the dependency on critical raw materials and traditional high energy demanding semiconductor processes. Moreover, investing in responsible electronics will be beneficial for the entire semiconductor ecosystem in Europe and will strengthen the EU technology sovereignty.
In total nine projects are funded under this challenge:
- BayFlex
The BAYFLEX project, added through booster BAIRE, is creating a radically new product that uses low cost, green organic technologies to enable continuous and private monitoring of bio-signals on flexible substrates. It uses neuromorphic elements to encode probabilistic signals and realize Gaussian naïve Bayes classification circuits using organic thin film and organic electrochemical transistors. The vision of flexible green AI sensors with on-chip decision-making, extends well beyond biomedical devices and has the possibility to transform sensor data at the edge of large networks. - ELEGANCE
ELEGANCE develops a new, printable, and light-operated processing technology specialised for IoT edge computing applications. The project employs abundant and recyclable eco-friendly materials. The processor enables simultaneous IoT energy-efficient computing and visual sensing. The project will implement in-memory computing schemes, such as crossbar memristor arrays, by employing low-cost, industrially compatible sustainable printing techniques. - GRETA
GRETA will lay the foundation of the first green, printed and flexible organic wireless identification tag operating at Ultra-High Frequency (UHF, 300 MHz – 1 GHz). The long-term vision of the project is to enable remote powering and readout of tags up to meters of distance, as required in logistics and security, without the need for a battery and drastically reducing lifecycle impact and cost in comparison to any available passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. - GreenOMorph
The project aims to reduce the environmental impact of electronics by addressing manufacturing, usage, and disposal and eliminating the need for critical raw materials in electronic devices. It uses neuromorphic computing instead of traditional Von Neumann computing, drastically reducing energy consumption during use. It will use organic electronics with eco-friendly materials and employ low-temperature additive manufacturing techniques for all organic artificial sensory neuron components designed to recognise tactile pressure patterns. - HaloFreeEtch
HaloFreeEtch aims to identify new, halogen-free and sustainable etching processes for sustainable semiconductor manufacturing, applied to deep etching of silicon and silicon oxide. The project will provide a novel model and data-based methodology for sustainability and life cycle analysis of plasma-etching to quantify the carbon-footprint of all novel etching processes. HaloFreeEtch combines lab-scale research on three innovative technological routes with computational screening of novel and promising etchants, a comprehensive multi-scale modeling approach to predict potential working points and a model-based life cycle and sustainability analysis. - HISOPE
HiSOPE focuses on novel fast and broadband organic optoelectronic materials, devices and systems, allowing high added-value applications such as optical data transmission and wireless optical communication. The project aims to develop organic semiconductor (OSC) materials and fabricate different organic devices like High-Speed Organic Light Emitting Diodes, High-Speed Organic PhotoDetectors, and electrically driven Short Pulse Organic Lasers, and integrate these into lab-scale waveguided and wireless data transmission demonstrators. - RADIANT
RADIANT aims to relieve the environmental burden of LED technology while also improving its competitiveness. RADIANT incorporates the property of chirality into three emerging LED technologies: organic, perovskite, and quantum dot-based, significantly enhancing LED performance and reducing production costs - STELEC
STELEC develops circuit technologies for e-textiles using materials that are compatible with the lifecycle of conventional textiles and have minimal environmental impact, facilitating reuse within a circular economy. The project will use digital inkjet printing, 3D printing, and atmospheric plasma to create sustainable building blocks for textile electronics. The goal is to establish a new, environmentally friendly paradigm for e-textile development. - DESIRE4EU
Desire4EU aims to transform PCB manufacturing by promoting bio-sourced materials and circular processes. By combining expertise in materials science, green chemistry, and electronics, the project seeks to reduce the environmental impact of electronic boards while maintaining high performance and reliability. It aims to develop multilayer PCBs made entirely in Europe, significantly reduce electronic waste, recover critical metals through bio-inspired processes, and lower energy use, water pollution, and carbon emissions. - SUPERLASER
More information can be found here.