Comment: UK needs its own ‘Imec’

Imec held its Technology Forum in Brussels last month. Electronics Weekly’s components editor David Manners attended the event and his detailed reports on the technology ranging from deep sub-micron semiconductor technology to low power radio, IoT security and solar cells are published in this week’s issue of the magazine.

Why is Imec important to the UK electronics industry?

It is one of the three main European research centres for semiconductors, devices and software. The others are the various Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany and CEA-Leti in France. All are state-funded to some extent.

But they are commercial operations too, with international partners and carrying out work for clients both inside and outside Europe.

Arguably, Imec is the most significant of the three as its global reputation seems to say. Its research partnerships range from TSMC and Samsung to IBM and Intel.

The French government has cleverly shaped its expansion of CEA-Leti in Grenoble very much in the mould of Imec.

Unfortunately, successive UK governments have failed to see the wisdom in supporting the building of a similar microelectronics research centre in this country.

A select group of UK universities – Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Bristol and Cardiff – have taken the responsibility into their own hands and are nobly creating research programmes with international partners.

Sadly, start-ups working in the areas of semiconductor, wireless, solar and IoT invariably must look for the leading-edge research taking place across the English Channel. Inevitably UK firms are signing up to European research programmes at Imec, Fraunhofer and CEA-Leti.

This is fine as long as the status quo with EU research funding is not disturbed sometime soon.

It is a sobering thought that the UK is the only one of the three biggest European electronics markets that still does not have its ‘Imec’.