Key electronic components

Expected Impact

Projects are expected to deliver results aligned with the expected results set out in this call topic and to evidence their contribution through dedicated KPIs defined in the proposal. Expected results include:

• tangible capacity increases in EU-based production of the targeted electronic components, with demonstrated contribution to competitiveness;
• improved resilience & geographical distribution of supply, reducing single points of failure;
• strengthened availability and security of supply for priority defence product production lines, commensurate with identified risks and exposure to the risk of
• materialisation of conventional military threats;
• and measurable lead-time reductions, establishment or availability of reserved capacity where applicable, and workforce trained to operate and sustain the reinforced production lines.

Proposals shall define, baseline and track KPIs such as added throughput (units/month), time-to-rate, lead-time reduction, yield/quality improvements, qualified output delivered, reserved capacity parameters, and numbers of staff trained, alongside indicators evidencing risk mitigation (e.g., supply-chain robustness and obsolescence management outcomes).

Where implemented, the physical and cyber protection WP is expected to deliver measurable improvements in site and production security, evidenced through threat assessment protected sites to support the security measures and KPIs (e.g., coverage of protected areas/assets, detection/alert performance, response readiness, critical vulnerabilities mitigated). Those KPIs shall be linked to the project’s overall risk register and show how risk exposure is reduced and how production continuity is improved, thereby limiting the likelihood and/or impact of incidents that could delay production ramp-up or affect output and delivery reliability (including, where relevant, the availability of reserved capacity and the achievement of workforce-related milestones).

Objective

This topic aims to strengthen the competitiveness, responsiveness and ability of the EDTIB to reinforce EU industrial production capacity for key electronic components (including their components and corresponding raw materials insofar as they are intended or used wholly for the production of defence products) that constitute critical bottlenecks for key defence product, across land, air, naval and underwater domains:

• (swarming) UxSs and loitering munitions (including FPV variants, interceptor drones, and AI-enabled/autonomy-enabled UxS integration lines);
• (counter-)UxS systems (including EW-resilient defeat concepts and counter-interceptor solutions);
• missile (defence) systems (including missile seekers / terminal sensing sub-systems); • precision-guided munition (PGM);
• mobile communication nodes and C2 systems (including UxS datalinks/video transmission, relay/repeater nodes, underwater communication systems, cryptosystems and LTE/5G-enabled variants where relevant);
• and C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) including Electronic Warfare (EW, including secure tactical networking, trusted/anti-tamper enabled C4ISR/EW equipment), underwater ISR/ASW, sonar, radars, EO sensors, wideband multifunction RF systems and all associated processing.

Actions shall be aligned with the objectives, scope and priorities of this call topic and shall contribute to the competitiveness of the EU defence technological and industrial base by securing specific production capacity for:

• guidance electronics (including flight controller stacks, inertial measurement unit (IMUs), Galileo PRS receiver and sensor-fusion electronics);
• propulsion electronics (including electronic speed controllers (ESCs), motor control units, power distribution boards (PDBs), battery management system (BMS) electronics and propulsion power-conditioning modules);
• RF and laser modules (including RF front-end building blocks, T/R modules where applicable, datalink modules/chipsets and enabling RF/EO components like high-speed mixed-signal components and precision timing and frequency reference components, laser driver/control electronics, and laser transmit/receive sub-modules);
• multispectral cameras (including thermal/EO sensing modules, relevant dependencies like video transmission modules where applicable and low observable underwater sensors);
• avionics (including EW systems, edge compute integration where relevant to autonomy-enabled variants);
• PCBs and IC substrates (including HDI/secure PCBs, high-frequency laminates/materials and related processing capacity, trusted interconnect, and substrate assembly);
• Lithium-ion polymer batteries, power electronics and critical semiconductor building blocks (including electronic speed controllers (ESCs), propulsion control power electronics, FPGAs/SoCs/ASICs and secure processing components, and GaN/GaAs/SiGe/RF-CMOS/high power laser diodes supply-chain elements).

As industrial reinforcement actions, proposals shall integrate a robust approach to managing key risks (including safety, supply-chain and obsolescence, life-cycle and maintainability, and industrialisation) and shall, where relevant, take into account the necessity to include provisions allowing to upgrade quickly the targeted defence product based on the evolving lessons identified from the battlefield.

Applicants may include an optional dedicated WP implementing a supporting action as defined in Article 13(d) of Regulation (EU) 2025/2643, to reinforce the physical and cyber protection of the production capacity targeted by the action, including on security against UxS/drone-enabled threats. The objective is to reduce the risk of disruption, sabotage or interference affecting production continuity, ramp-up and deliveries, complementing the proposal’s overall risk-management approach (notably safety, supply-chain and obsolescence, industrialisation/integration, and maintainability risks) and supporting the achievement of the industrial KPIs set for lead time and capacity.

Scope

Proposals shall implement Industrial Reinforcement Actions, in line with Regulation (EU) 2025/2643, targeting the specific defence product production capacities listed under “Objectives pursued”.

Proposals shall demonstrate the criticality of the targeted defence and associated production capacity, and justify the urgency of reinforcing availability and security of supply through the proposed industrial reinforcement activities.

Proposals shall set out an industrial reinforcement plan supported by a risk-management approach that addresses the identified risks and the measures to ensure availability and security of supply.

Activities linked to the physical and cyber protection WP may include expert threat assessment, procurement, installation and initial integration of proportionate solutions as well as efforts to connect to a national or European security system for: (i) counter-UxS site protection measures (detection/alerting and other authorised protective measures), and/or (ii) cyber protection measures of production-relevant networks and systems (including monitoring, hardening and secure access) which includes obtaining the European Union Cybersecurity Certification (EUCC) schemes for products used in the IRA activity, as well as acceptance testing and operational set-up necessary for effective deployment, in order to work towards compliance with the NIS2 Directive, where applicable, and alignment with standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 and IEC 62443.

Where implemented, the physical and cyber protection WP shall clearly specify the protected assets, threat assessment for the to be protected sites to support the security measures, interfaces with production continuity and KPIs, explain how these measures reduce risks that could otherwise impact the delivery of the proposal’s core industrial results (e.g., lead-time reduction, throughput/capacity increase, reserved capacity where applicable, and workforce readiness) and present efforts to link the respective site’s security system with a national and/or European security system.

Actions shall not have started before 5 March 2024 and shall not have been completed before the signature of the Grant Agreement (GA). The duration and the starting date of the action will be set out in the GA. The action shall have an indicative duration of three to five years; in any event, it shall be completed no later than 31 December 2033.