The  UK System-on-Chip Design Accelerator announced under the  UK AI Hardware Plan has received funding from EPSRC to help support SoC design projects undertaken by individuals and teams in UK university/research institutions. As part of the activity, we are pleased to announce a UK specific design contest for 2026/2027. 

The competition follows the usual SoC Labs methodology of two separate tracks, 

The Siemens Cre8Ventures open Higher Education Program aims to help to accelerate semiconductor innovation by connecting early in the innovation cycle with innovators inside universities. It is part of Siemens activities that are backed by the Semiconductor Education Alliance (SEA), a not-for-profit consortium convened by Arm to scale semiconductor education and innovation globally.

The programme provides a range of support:

In association with CMC Microsystems and Arm we are extending our design contest specifically supporting institutions from Canada and the America's with support for their projects, conference attendance and financial help with silicon tape out. 

People wishing to take part can look at prior contests and projects such as those for our now closed SoC Design Contest 2024/25: Understanding Our World. 

The contest will again support two alternate tracks: 

The Forum was hosted by Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute ("TSRI"), Interuniversity Microelectonics Centre ("imec") and Europractice. One of the main themes throughout the Forum was the need for us all to collaborate, especially between the semiconductor industry and academia, and something we activity promote here at SoC Labs. The presentations and attendees from both communities was very impressive and hopefully will lead to a lot of innovative collaborations.

Monday 16th September at 2024 IEEE 37th International System-on-Chip Conference saw the announcement of a new design contest for creation of an academic Chiplet based disaggregated SOC using the ARM ecosystem. 

Rewards/ Prizes: 

SoC Labs will arrange for the winning design:

funding toward die fabrication costs for custom chiplets

fabrication of a custom interposer/package

design support during the year

Tomorrow sees the start of the 37th IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference (SOCC) in Dresden. Last night saw the legendary Kraftwerk play live in the city. I am not sure if the organisers of the conference arranged that but they have certainly been very helpful in supporting a a Special Session for SoC Labs on Thursday. 

In association with CMC Microsystems we are holding an on-line workshop. The workshop will outline how the broad range of IP made freely by Arm Academic Access combined with academic-focused reusable reference designs and tape out flows (being developed by the SoC Labs academic community) are making System on Chip projects easier to undertake by individual students and larger academic teams.