Imec ITF World 2025: The {hardware} horizon for AI

Imec CEO Luc Van den hove opened ITF World 2025 by calling for “disruptive innovation over incremental change”. He underscored the necessity for tighter international collaboration to beat looming bottlenecks in compute energy, power use and chip structure. “By supercharging our innovation engine, we are able to future-proof our prosperity,” stated Van den hove. 

The message resonated throughout sectors. Synthetic intelligence (AI’s) march into on a regular basis purposes – from language fashions to autonomous driving – is elevating the stakes for semiconductor R&D. Europe, dealing with renewed geopolitical stress to safe its expertise stack, is betting on superior analysis and industrial pilot strains as strategic belongings.

Van den hove highlighted a paradox: AI is transferring so quick that conventional chip design cycles can’t sustain. By the point an application-specific built-in circuit (ASIC) reaches manufacturing, the goal mannequin might already be out of date. Massive language fashions (LLMs) like GPT-4 are hitting diminishing returns in efficiency regardless of rising computational calls for. 

To deal with this, Imec is pursuing what it calls system-technology co-optimisation: tighter integration of chip design and software program structure. The objective is to construct smarter, extra environment friendly {hardware} able to adapting to dynamic AI workloads. “It’s not nearly extra chips,” stated Van den hove. “It’s about bridging the hole between algorithms, architectures and expertise platforms.” 

This effort spans a number of fronts. In healthcare, Imec is advancing organ-on-chip platforms for AI-driven drug testing. The corporate’s microfluidics expertise now helps biologically correct fashions of the human blood-brain barrier, permitting researchers to check drug supply for illnesses reminiscent of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s with unprecedented realism and scale. 

In automotive, Imec offered updates on its chiplet-based structure designed to energy edge AI in automobiles. The modular method permits sensor information from lidar, radar and cameras to be processed on compact, high-performance digital management items (ECUs). “We’re speaking about supercomputers in automobiles,” stated Van den hove. 

In the meantime, Imec’s work in quantum {hardware} focuses on scale. Slightly than constructing total programs, the organisation is leveraging its foundry capabilities to provide silicon qubits on 300mm wafers – a necessary step in the direction of constructing sensible quantum processors. “That is the place Imec’s foundry-scale experience turns into important,” he stated. 

A lot of Imec’s present roadmap hinges on fixing three interrelated issues: compute density, energy consumption and reminiscence bandwidth.

To increase Moore’s Legislation, Imec is advancing a “CMOS 2.0” method primarily based on vertical scaling. Stacking transistors and chiplets into 3D configurations permits for useful customisation at every layer – an structure geared toward squeezing extra efficiency from smaller footprints. 

Nevertheless, larger energy densities carry thermal challenges. Imec is engaged on novel thermal administration methods, together with direct liquid cooling and architectural designs that minimise warmth focus. 

The corporate can be rethinking reminiscence. With most of AI’s power price tied to information motion slightly than computation, Imec is exploring ferroelectric and magnetic reminiscence, together with vertical reminiscence arrays below improvement by its spin-off, Vertical Compute. 

Optical interconnects are the ultimate piece. By embedding lasers on photonic interposers, Imec goals to dramatically enhance information switch charges between chiplets, overcoming one of many key obstacles to next-generation high-performance computing. 

One of many standout keynote audio system at ITF World 2025 was Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice-president of {hardware} applied sciences, who shared insights into how the corporate is assembly the calls for of AI, efficiency and power effectivity. “Our job at Apple is to ship, at scale, on time, with uncompromising efficiency and effectivity,” he stated. “That requires not simply innovation, however industrial self-discipline.” 

Central to Apple’s {hardware} technique is customised silicon. Srouji defined that Apple designs chips not as general-purpose parts, however as tailor-made engines for particular use instances. “We don’t begin with a chip and ask what it could do – we begin with the expertise and design the silicon to make that potential,” he stated.

This method permits Apple to tightly couple {hardware} and software program, and optimise throughout your entire stack, from energy administration to machine studying accelerators. 

Customisation additionally helps Apple hit formidable power effectivity targets. “Each microwatt issues,” stated Srouji. “If you wish to ship billions of units that final all day and carry out complicated AI workloads, you possibly can’t depend on off-the-shelf options.” 

He acknowledged that this stage of integration provides complexity, however stated Imec’s function within the course of is important. “Imec provides us early entry to course of applied sciences and insights into what’s coming subsequent,” stated Srouji. “That lets us make higher design selections and de–danger what would in any other case be extremely speculative innovation.” 

He known as Imec’s collaborative mannequin “a uncommon mixture of educational depth and industrial pragmatism”, and famous that Imec’s pilot strains had helped Apple validate cutting-edge packaging and transistor ideas. “With out establishments like Imec, we wouldn’t be capable to transfer on the velocity we do,” stated Srouji.

Past the expertise, Imec’s convention served as a reminder of Europe’s broader ambitions. The €2.5bn infrastructure growth – supported by the European Chips Act – is a part of a plan to bolster the area’s place in international semiconductor improvement. That features new R&D hubs in Belgium, Spain and Germany. 

“The Chips Act isn’t about doing all the things – it’s about doing the proper issues exceptionally nicely,” stated Van den hove.

Europe’s strengths, he argued, lie in superior R&D, photonics and pilot-scale manufacturing – areas the place Imec performs a central function. 

In the end, the message from Antwerp was much less about blue-sky visions and extra about exhausting decisions. If Europe desires to guide in AI, quantum computing and superior semiconductor design, it might want to transfer rapidly, make investments properly and collaborate throughout borders.

“Let’s supercharge our innovation engine and future-proof our prosperity collectively,” stated Van den hove.