ANTWERP, Belgium, May 22 (Reuters) - The European Chips

Act is on track to help attract more than 100 billion euros

($108.41 billion) worth of private investment to the European

semiconductor industry by 2030, a European Commission official

said on Wednesday.

Thomas Skordas was speaking at a conference in Antwerp about

the future of the initiative, which is Europe's answer to

similar programmes in the United States and Japan and to China's

support for its domestic computer chip makers.

The European Chips Act has led to "promises for investments

of the order of 100 billion euros to expand the manufacturing

capacity within the EU by 2030", Skordas said.

The European Union Chips Act, billed as offering funding of

43 billion euros, relies heavily on individual governments with

the Commission so far approving very little actual funding.

However, firms including Intel ( INTC ) and TSMC

have announced plans to build plants in Germany at a cost of

more than 30 billion euros this year.

Skordas, an official at the Commission's digital unit, said

the commission expects to finalise funding for R&D pilot lines

in four sub-sectors of the chip industry by September, including

a 2.5 billion euro grant for developing extremely advanced chips

in Europe.

Skordas said unspecified funding for another pilot line to

develop photonics, or chips that use light instead of

electricity, is still in the works.

The Commission is also arranging funding for a European

design platform to give companies, academics and startups access

to the software tools needed to design their own chips. Most

advanced chipmakers design chips but leave the manufacturing to

specialists such as TSMC, Samsung or Intel ( INTC ).

"In July, we expect to open the call for the consortium that

will be responsible for designing and developing this platform

at the European level," Skordas said.

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