> I think much of the relevant general-purpose chip design knowledge we had (ARM) left the EU this morning
Worth noting the Sophia Antipolis arm design centre in France continues to exist. It works on some of the big A-class cores (The A75 for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A75).
Though whether arm would get involved in this endeavour is another question. They have a significant physical IP portfolio: https://www.arm.com/products/silicon-ip-physical and associated skillsets (I think at least some of this is UK based, not entirely sure how much) so would be a good partner to have and I suspect arm would like to see arm cores coming out as test designs rather than RISC-V cores. Of course in the wake of brexit potentially not a partnership the EU wants politically! UK government would spin it as UK company plays key part in major EU initiative with significant funding awarded. EU would spin it as EU brings in major global semiconductor company to new semiconductor initiative.
Worth noting the Sophia Antipolis arm design centre in France continues to exist. It works on some of the big A-class cores (The A75 for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A75).
Though whether arm would get involved in this endeavour is another question. They have a significant physical IP portfolio: https://www.arm.com/products/silicon-ip-physical and associated skillsets (I think at least some of this is UK based, not entirely sure how much) so would be a good partner to have and I suspect arm would like to see arm cores coming out as test designs rather than RISC-V cores. Of course in the wake of brexit potentially not a partnership the EU wants politically! UK government would spin it as UK company plays key part in major EU initiative with significant funding awarded. EU would spin it as EU brings in major global semiconductor company to new semiconductor initiative.