EC Launches ENIAC to Fund Industrial Research in Nanoelectronics
February 22, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The European Commission (EC) formally launched ENIAC, a major joint technology initiative (JTI) on nanoelectronics, on Feb. 22. An unprecedented €3 billion will be invested in nanoelectronics with its launch.
ENIAC, which was endorsed by the European Council of Ministers and the European Parliament at the end of 2007, is a new public-private partnership targeting nanoelectronics, the nanotechnology that enables increasingly high levels of miniaturisation in the many high-tech products and applications emerging today.
To promote economies of scale, cost savings and much shorter times to market for products based on these technologies, thereby keeping European industry at the forefront of global developments in this field, the European Union (EU) decided to pioneer an entirely new way of funding such research in Europe. This decision followed an EC proposal in May 2007 (see IP/07/668).
With ENIAC, the EC and participating EU member states pool their public funding with universities and industry by setting up public-private partnerships.
While research funding in nanoelectronics so far tends to be fragmented in small projects funded by individual member states and agencies, the new "open" consortium of ENIAC will allow member states and the EC to cooperate and co-finance European-wide research initiatives focussed on a strategic agenda set by industry itself.
"Today, it is the smallest technologies that are taking the largest leaps forward, and our industries must do the same," said Viviane Reding, EC commissioner for information society and media. "The possibilities offered by nanoelectronics are only limited by our imagination. They underpin all aspects of everyday devices and so concern everyone in Europe."
"ENIAC, which has a budget of €3 billion over 10 years, is a concrete way to ensure that such a key industrial sector continues its strong economic growth, right here in Europe," Reding added. "It is only thanks to the support received for ENIAC from the European Parliament and from the Council that we can launch this new research initiative today."
Europe's semiconductor industry is currently worth around €200 billion and drives a €800 billion electronic systems market. This sector is estimated to grow 8 to 10% annually, three times more than the estimated overall economic growth for Europe.
The €3 billion investment in ENIAC in the coming 10 years represents a substantial boost to longer-term developments based on nanoelectronics, which will largely supersede the current generation of microelectronic devices within the same time period.
On Feb. 22, the EC also launched a second JTI called ARTEMIS, which targets embedded computing systems (see IP/08/283). These two JTIs represent a breakthrough in efficient implementation of research programmes at the scale and speed needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global competition.
About nanoelectronics
The smallest thing your eye can see might be a strand of hair or a silk fibre. If you try to imagine something a thousand times smaller, you've reached the mysterious realm of the nanoworld, where billions of electronic devices can be made at molecular level, in the space of just a few square millimetres.
When combined with powerful and reliable software, these miniature electronic devices can deliver new features and services for improving our daily lives. Such nanoelectronics and computing technologies trigger and serve innovation in many industrial and socio-economic sectors, including telecommunications, transport, consumer goods, manufacturing, health care and energy.
For example, a car today has anything between 50 and 100 electronic chips that control the engine, steering, braking, stability, dashboard, entertainment system, navigation and more. This has led to reductions in fuel consumption and improved safety for occupants. In the future, we can expect further reduction in emissions with computer-controlled hybrid engines and collision avoidance for pedestrians and other vehicles.
Further information
Agreement on ENIAC was reached by the EU Competitiveness Council on Nov. 23, 2007 (see MEMO/07/479) and then by the European Parliament on Dec. 11 (see IP/07/1896). An EU regulation allowing ENIAC to be set up was formally approved by the European Council on Dec. 20, 2007 and published in the EU's Official Journal on Feb. 4, 2008.
Within the next few months, ENIAC will be fully operational as an organisation based in Brussels with its own rules, staff, premises and budgets. Its tasks will include coordinating research through calls for proposals and funding of research projects on a Europe-wide scale.
The following member states currently participate in ENIAC: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.
For more information, see:
Source: European Commission.