Annual report 2009 - Imec

The path the IC industry has followed, driven
by Moore’s law, has been an immense success.
Clever engineering, top-notch research, and
collaboration between various disciplines have been
tantamount in reaching that result.
Other sectors have not followed the same speed of
efficiency improvement. And for some, getting on
track for a fast change and breakthrough results is getting
rather urgent. Think of healthcare, for example.
Organizing a cost-effective healthcare for an ageing
and growing population will be a formidable challenge.
Another challenge is organizing the use of energy and
resources so that we no longer deplete the earth. Here
we talk about, for example, organizing cost-effective,
sustainable energy generation, smart grids, or sustainable
and safe mobility.
These challenges have a common denominator: they
are extremely complex, and they call for solutions that
are mass-produceable, cost-effective, and sustainable.
One obvious solution is to leverage the expertise and
engineering model of the electronics industry, which
has over four decades of experience with exactly that
kind of solutions.
For our researchers and engineers, there is a chance
here, a chance to make a difference, even in this globalizing,
flattening world. We have a very good education
and bright, versatile, well-trained people. We have the
knowledge centers and R&D institutes that compete
with the best in the world. We have our universities,
of course. And there’s imec focusing on nanoelectronics;
the VIB, which is building a world reputation in
biotechnology; the IBBT, working on telecom and software
technology, and last SIM, our youngest initiative
grouping expertise in materials technology.
So we have a unique research environment, situated
in the heart of Europe. We can make a difference if
we leverage that environment and have experts from
various disciplines and centers cooperate.
INTERVIEW WITh PauL LaGassE
ASSOCIATED LAB AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GHENT
CROSS-DISCIPLINARy
COLLABORATION
FOR A BETTER wORLD
For 25 years now, imec is showing how it can be
done. It started out as a collaboration effort in microelectronics,
taking in people from various disciplines
and working with various labs and experts, among
which were the microelectronics labs at the University
of Ghent. And from the start, the ambition was to
be a world-player, and to offer solutions that were
relevant for the industry. Imec even went as far as
to organize collaborative, precompetitive innovation
with companies, sharing the risks and rewards.
But it doesn’t stop there: imec also leverages its
exper tise in other domains, for example healthcare
and energy. One notable example is of course the
NERF initiative, a collaboration with the VIB and the
Catholic University of Leuven. The ambition of NERF
is to do world-leading research, unraveling the neuro nal
circuitry of the human brain. Over time, this research
could lead to relevant solutions for brain patho lo -
gies.
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