UK LAUNCHES SEMICONDUCTOR CATAPULT TO STRENGTHEN SOVEREIGN CAPABILITIES IN AI HARDWARE AND DEFENCE

The Semiconductor Catapult was launched today to strengthen UK supply chains and accelerate semiconductor technologies from concept to reality. It provides customers with access to UK semiconductor supply chain integration, design, system test and validation, delivering long-term economic benefit to the UK.

A UK wide national asset

The Catapult works on complex engineering challenges and is the only place in the UK, and one of the few places in Europe, with co-located, multidisciplinary teams spanning RF and microwave, photonics, power electronics, advanced packaging, and quantum. It has capability in design, development, integration, advanced packaging, test and validation. It provides end-to-end solutions for complete products and leveraging UK supply chains for silicon and compound semiconductors.

Customers work with the Catapult on commercial and collaborative research and development projects, accessing specialist engineering expertise, laboratories and equipment to reduce technical risk, validate new technologies and accelerate product development.
The Catapult serves the UK market from its labs in Newport, Bristol, and Glasgow, working with start-ups, SMEs and large businesses.

Market priorities

The Semiconductor Catapult focuses on four key technology sectors

• Advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration: Supporting chiplet and system-in-package architectures to overcome scaling limits
• Power electronics and thermal management: Enabling high-density AI hardware and supporting next generation infrastructure.
• Photonics and optical interconnects: Advancing data infrastructure and emerging applications (including silicon and quantum photonics and sensing)
• RF and mixed-signal integration: Facilitating next-generation RF solutions for beamforming applications and analogue integration.

In the first phase, the Catapult will establish an integration-ready capability and core silicon capabilities that enable customers to validate architectures and reduce early-stage risk. In the second phase, the Semiconductor Catapult will demonstrate mature, system-level integration capability and clear routes to scale-up and small volume production.
National capability.

The Semiconductor Catapult enables companies to scale and grow the UK economy by translating leadership in research and development into products, manufacturing capability and stronger supply chains.

Caroline O’Brien, Chief Executive Officer of the Semiconductor Catapult:

“The market opportunity for the UK in AI hardware and defence is moving quickly. The Semiconductor Catapult ensures more of the technologies, supply chains and economic benefits created by semiconductor innovation are developed and retained in the UK. The Semiconductor Catapult strengthens and builds new UK supply chains, supports start-ups, SMEs and large companies so they can be anchored long-term in the UK.

By bringing together multidisciplinary expertise, specialist facilities and system-level integration capability, the Semiconductor Catapult will help companies reduce risk and accelerate their route to market.
We bridge gaps in device innovation, test, validation and scale-up particularly in heterogenous design, photonics integration and in RF, serving the AI hardware and defence markets.”

“Semiconductors are the critical infrastructure behind AI hardware, defence, energy and communications. The decisions made today will determine where the technologies, companies and economic value behind those markets are created.”