Will the Government answer another call for a national facility?

The idea of setting up a national centre for the development of IP was originally put forward in the ‘Chips For Everything’ report from the House of Lords in December 2002.

The suggestion for a national centre was rejected by the Government on the grounds of cost, but a similar centre has now been proposed in a DTI Foresight project report, ‘Exploiting the Electromagnetic Spectrum’.

The Foresight group says a national silicon foundry is needed for the UK to gain what it calls an “optimistic 50 per cent share” of the growing security imaging market – a market estimated to be worth a total of $10bn worldwide in ten years time.

The report admits this would be expensive, but considers it is still “an attractive option”, adding that to “reap big benefits will, however, require both a prototyping and a mass production foundry and, considering the response last time, it seems unlikely a second recommendation will result in the desired centre.

But still, if this is rejected, the UK is expected to be able to make $400m from CCTV in this sector of the market. Plus, the report has many other possibilities for the UK to make money within the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio frequencies through optical to x-ray.
In fact it has plans which could bring in a total of $12bn of business, if the opportunities are exploited properly.

The collection of scientists, business people and users which made up the Foresight group for this report, has earmarked four areas with potential.

It was felt these were where there was a clear market demand and also a strong UK research base from which to start.

The silicon foundry would be needed for the “non-intrusive imaging” security detection market, but the other side of this is medical imaging.

The development of smart tags and markers, which would replace radioactive markers used in medical imaging, could be worth $6bn to the UK. These smart tags would attach to “indicators of disease” in the body and show up with imaging techniques.

“Switching to light” is reckoned to be worth $500m in ten years time just for the fast optical switches.

However the report does say $20m of initial investment in R&D to support existing integrated photonics technology UK research centres would be needed to capture a share of the market, along with a “co-ordinated and visionary strategy by the photonics community”.

“Manufacturing with light” dangles the possibility of another $5bn for the UK, this time with integrated lab-on-chip systems.
Mass production of these systems, which are used in medical diagnostic applications, would be brought about by the use of lasers for manufacturing.

Laser micromachining in three dimensions also offers the chance to make such items as solar cells, smart fibres and photonic crystals, although the cost of setting up production is very high.

As the last of the four areas chosen for attention, Foresight is less clear about the market potential for “inside the wavelength”.
This refers to electromagnetics in the near field which is critical for developing smart antennas and integrated radio frequency infrastructure and circuitry.

The report puts no value on this market, instead opting to say more basic research is needed into metamaterials, composite artificial materials which allow manipulation of the near field.

What seems to leap out of this report is the need to spend cash, and lots of it, something the Government always has had a reluctance to do. Perhaps now is the time to remind them that you have to speculate in order to accumulate.