AI Meets the Fab: Fraunhofer IAF Brings Intelligent Chip Design and Sovereign III-V Pilot Lines to Stuttgart

When the doors of the new EFX—Expo for Electronics Manufacturing open at the Stuttgart exhibition center from October 6 to 8, 2026, one of the most closely watched exhibits will come from Freiburg. The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, one of the world’s leading research institutions in III-V semiconductors and synthetic diamond, will present its work in the joint Chip Connect BW area, a shared booth organized within the Baden-Württemberg semiconductor network of the same name, which is operated by microTEC Südwest. The institute is using the premiere of this new trade fair to spotlight two themes that increasingly define the future of microelectronics: artificial intelligence as a tool for designing chips, and chips designed specifically to run artificial intelligence. Alongside these new research activities, Fraunhofer IAF will demonstrate its long-established strength in III-V semiconductor manufacturing, offered to industry through accessible pilot lines.

The pairing of the two themes is deliberate rather than coincidental. Modern chip development has become one of the most computationally and intellectually demanding tasks in engineering, and AI is rapidly changing how circuits are conceived, verified, and optimized. At the same time, the explosive growth of machine learning has created enormous demand for hardware that can execute neural networks efficiently, particularly outside the data center, where power budgets are tight and latency matters. Fraunhofer IAF’s new initiatives in Heilbronn address both sides of this equation, while its III-V activities address a third, equally strategic concern: ensuring that Europe retains sovereign, resilient manufacturing capacity for the specialized semiconductor technologies that underpin communications, mobility, and security.

The first of the new initiatives is the state-funded project FRAUKE—short for Fraunhofer AI Design—carried out at the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI) in Heilbronn. In FRAUKE, Fraunhofer IAF is working together with the University of Stuttgart and IMS CHIPS to research CMOS circuit design for and through artificial intelligence. The phrase captures a double ambition. On one side, the project aims to accelerate the design process itself, using AI methods to support and speed up the creation of CMOS circuits. On the other, it aims to develop CMOS-based hardware components for AI applications, with target domains that include edge computing and image processing—areas where intelligent processing must happen directly on the device rather than in a distant cloud. The project is funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Skilled Craft and Tourism of Baden-Württemberg, anchoring it firmly in the state’s growing semiconductor strategy.

Running in parallel is a second, longer-term undertaking at the same Heilbronn location. Fraunhofer IAF and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, together with the Research and Innovation Center FIZ Chip AI, are building a durable infrastructure for AI chip design within the Fraunhofer Heilbronn Research and Innovation Centers, known as HNFIZ. This effort is funded by the Dieter Schwarz Foundation and is intended to establish a platform for what the institute describes as AI Hardware Made in Germany. The scope stretches from AI-supported CMOS design processes all the way to neuromorphic processors and spiking neural networks, a class of brain-inspired computing architectures valued for their potential to deliver energy-efficient edge AI. By building this infrastructure in Heilbronn, the partners are creating a permanent home for research that connects algorithmic intelligence with physical silicon.

Visitors to the Fraunhofer IAF booth in Stuttgart will be able to engage with these themes directly. The institute will present an interactive exhibit on AI tools for chip design and on chip design for AI applications, translating the abstract ambitions of the FRAUKE and FIZ Chip AI initiatives into a hands-on experience. The exhibit is designed to show how closely AI and microelectronics already interact today, a point emphasized by the institute’s leadership. Prof. Rüdiger Quay, Director of Fraunhofer IAF, notes that the presence at EFX demonstrates the interaction between intelligent chip design and powerful hardware for AI applications, while also underscoring the institute’s role in transferring these technologies into industrial practice in Germany and Europe through its III-V pilot lines and its position within the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany.

That second pillar—III-V semiconductor manufacturing—may be less fashionable than artificial intelligence, but it is arguably more foundational. III-V compound semiconductors, materials formed from elements in the third and fifth groups of the periodic table, include gallium nitride (GaN) and indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). These materials offer electronic and optical properties that silicon cannot match in certain regimes: GaN excels in high-power, high-frequency operation, while InGaAs is prized for high-speed and optoelectronic applications. The result is a technology base that is indispensable for 5G and future 6G networks, autonomous driving, satellite communication, and modern defense systems. Fraunhofer IAF argues pointedly that Europe must not become dependent on non-European supply chains in these areas, a concern that has moved to the center of industrial policy across the continent.

What the institute brings to this challenge is a complete chain of expertise housed in its specialized cleanroom in Freiburg. The capabilities span epitaxy—the crystal-growth process by which the layered semiconductor structures are deposited—through process development, design, and characterization, and extend to modules and advanced prototyping based on III-V compound semiconductors. At EFX, the exhibits presented by Fraunhofer IAF are intended to exemplify this end-to-end capability. The strategic idea is to make specialized III-V chip technologies accessible to industry through pilot lines: shared manufacturing and development pathways that allow companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, to test, mature, and prototype advanced technologies without having to invest in their own specialized fabrication facilities.

This pilot-line philosophy scales up through Fraunhofer IAF’s role as a cooperating institute of the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD), a consortium of thirteen Fraunhofer Institutes together with the Leibniz Institutes FBH and IHP. Within this national research infrastructure, Fraunhofer IAF contributes the III-V expertise for high-frequency, power, and optoelectronics. The consortium model is designed to give research and industry a single point of access to the full breadth of microelectronics technologies, and the institute frames its participation as a direct contribution to resilient, European manufacturing capacities in electronics manufacturing. The stated goal is to create the foundation for mastering critical high technologies independently—from the laboratory to industrial production—a formulation that speaks directly to current debates about technological sovereignty.

The venue for all of this is itself part of the story. EFX—Expo for Electronics Manufacturing is a new event, and Messe Stuttgart is positioning it as a platform for innovative, digital, and resilient electronics manufacturing. The choice of Baden-Württemberg as the host region is no accident: the state has been investing heavily in its semiconductor ecosystem, and the Chip Connect BW network, in which Fraunhofer IAF is an active partner, exists precisely to present local expertise along the semiconductor value chain and in technology transfer. By exhibiting together with other network partners, the institute is presenting not an isolated laboratory but a connected regional ecosystem capable of carrying research results into production.

For the audiences the fair is meant to attract—companies, start-ups, scientists, and trade visitors—the invitation is explicitly practical. Fraunhofer IAF will be reachable at booth 9B26B in the Chip Connect BW joint area from October 6 to 8, 2026, with experts available to discuss AI chip design, chip manufacturing, and III-V pilot lines, and to initiate concrete collaborations. Behind the trade-fair presentation lies a broader argument about how the next decade of electronics will be built: that the tools used to design chips will increasingly be intelligent themselves, that the hardware running AI will need to be radically more efficient at the edge, and that the specialized materials enabling high-frequency and power electronics must be manufacturable on European soil. Fraunhofer IAF’s Stuttgart presence is, in essence, a demonstration of all three propositions under one roof, backed by a research institution whose work covers the entire value chain from materials research and design through processing to modules, systems, and demonstrators—including electronic circuits for innovative communication and mobility solutions, laser systems for real-time spectroscopy, novel hardware components for quantum computing, and quantum sensors for industrial applications.

Subject of Research: AI-supported chip design and III-V semiconductor pilot lines for European electronics manufacturing

Article Title: AI chip design and III-V pilot lines for electronics manufacturing

Article References: AI chip design and III-V pilot lines for electronics manufacturing. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Fraunhofer IAF, chip design, artificial intelligence, III-V semiconductors, gallium nitride, CMOS, neuromorphic computing, pilot lines, electronics manufacturing, edge AI, Research Fab Microelectronics Germany, EFX 2026