Microchips are an essential element for the emerging technologies needed for the green and digital transition. Yet security and vulnerability issues along the value chain are raising complex questions about the future of trusted chips. On Friday 2 December, CEN and CENELEC hosted a stakeholders’ workshop discussing the standardization landscape and opportunities for Europe in the microchips value chain.
The event began with an introduction from CEN and CENELEC Secretary General Elena Santiago CID who remarked that “The importance of today’s topic cannot be understated: after all, as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen rightly put it, ‘there is no digital without chips’. Chips are the foundation of modern technologies: they support the functioning of a wide range of products at the heart of our world, such as communication tools, automobiles, aircraft, computers, medical devices, security systems, certainly key enablers for Europe to achieve its digital ambitions.”
CENELEC Vice-President Technical Frédéric Vaillant opened the day’s discussions noting that “today’s workshop is key for finding the path for secure, trusted, cybersecure chips in Europe and possibly all regions, leveraging standards and certification scheme. I am eager to help put in place within CENELEC what can deliver this objective, obviously following our key principles in standardization which are based on expertise, consensus, inclusivity and transparency.”
In 2020, one trillion microchips were manufactured in the world across a complex, global supply chain. The importance of microchips in key European industrial sectors has been fully recognised by the European Union with their proposed EU Chips Act. The keynote speech from Colette Maloney, Head of Unit CNECT A3 at the European Commission, outlined the main elements of the EU Chips act and its vision of creating a state-of-the-art European chips ecosystem.
The first panel gave a broad overview on the risks and threats in the value chain of the chips. Speakers from NXP, Texas Instruments and Fraunhofer AISEC provided insight on the microchips market, microchip standardization at international level and the concept of trusted electronics.
The second panel featured speakers from STMicroelectronics, NXP Semiconductors and the Digital SME Alliance. This panel explained in-depth what are trusted chips, the different types of risk associated with the chips value chain and the importance of SMEs in this sector.
The final panel was a deep dive into the role of standards and security certification in creating trust in the security of microchips. CEN and CENELEC welcomed speakers from JTSEC, Infineon Technologies, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
The workshop was concluded by Stipe Mandic, Project Manager Energy at DKE, the German Commission for Electrotechnical, Electronic and Information Technologies. The workshop is the beginning of a process lead by DKE to prepare a joint standardization roadmap. This roadmap is envisioned to inform future standards development.
The recording and presentations of the event will be shared on this page in the coming days.
