UK mini-fab proposal rejected

The DTI has refused to support and fund the UK Research Council’s proposal for a much-needed semiconductor facility to support leading-edge chip design in start-ups and universities.

Earlier this year, Lord Broers, as the then president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, made clear his forthright support for the £50m silicon mini-fab when he said: “We might have to go to war on this one.”

The proposal for the mini-fab, which was intended to support semiconductor design in small companies and universities, has not been included in a list of projects which the DTI has put forward for priority funding under its Large Facilities programme.

With science-related projects being supported by the programme it is further evidence that the Government does not wish to support a technology initiative which will serve a core industrial sector such as microelectronics.

“It is sad that again funding seems to go to basic science and not to projects which can directly help industry,” Dr Douglas Paul, a semiconductor specialist at Cambridge’s Cavendish Lab told EW.

“As silicon underpins so much of society today, it would have been good to have the Government help support some of the silicon industrial base in this country that still exists as most other countries get significant government support for silicon microelectronics,” said Paul.

The mini-fab blow is further evidence that the UK electronics industry is disadvantaged in comparison to the scale of state support which countries such as Germany, France and Belgium have seen for many years.