IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015 - 24

long lasting programs that link
private industry and government
and university stakeholders in a collaborative long-term R&D funding
paradigm. It has played out to be
a win-win situation particularly on
the front of private-public partnerships creating desirable and noticeable return on investment (ROI), as
a generation of hard assets (intellectual property) and soft assets
(training students and workforce
on relevant challenges for industry readiness) all towards fulfilling
the original grand challenge. One
citable example is the creation of
the Focus Center Research Program
in 1999 (which today is known as
the STARnet program [36]) which
over the course of its inception
has been partly funded by the U.S.

Clear solutions are yet to be
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semiconductor industry and U.S. DoD,
and has been administered by the
Semiconductor Research Corporation.

European Region
Overview of Nanoelectronics
Programs in Europe
In Europe, research and innovation
programs are the responsibility of
the individual member states and
numerous funding opportunities for
research projects exist at European,
member state, and regional levels.
During the past several years, nanoelectronics research in Europe was
influenced by cautious funding in
Germany. A strong effort from the

French Government with concentration of many nanoelectronics activities in the Grenoble area, and with
Belgian/Flemish and Dutch efforts
to stay in tune with the international
development of technology, equipment, and materials. Emphasis on
enhanced manufacturing-oriented
R&D has occurred, with examples
such as U.S. based companies having European manufacturing sites
(Intel Ireland, Intel Israel, AMD/
GlobalFoundries Dresden) and
existing fabricators exploiting
emerging areas around "More-thanMoore" technologies.
In 2010, Europe defined key enabling technologies (KETs) as the
basis for increasing industrial competiveness. KETs include nanotechnology, advanced materials,
photonics, biotechnology,
a d v a n c e d manufacturing
and micro-/nanoelectronics
[37]. One recommendation
was to bridge the "Valley of
Death," the gap between science and research on the
one hand and industrial dissemination in the market
on the other, as shown in
Figure 2. This recommendation served as a major input
for the new framework program for research and innovation,
"Horizon 2020" [38].
In 2012, a European research
cluster in nanoelectronics, targeting bi-lateral and multi-lateral
cooperation between various Member States - the EUREKA cluster
CATRENE - and the European Industry Association for micro-and nanoelectronics - AENEAS - identified
major European industrial interest
areas [39]. As a consequence, the
European Commission adopted
a strategy of doubling European
chip production by 2020 and Commissioner Neelie Kroes set up an
Electronics Leaders Group (ELG)
to come up with a strategic plan
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

[40]. Following the strategic plan,
first implementation actions were
taken during 2013 under the 7th
Framework for Research and Innovation in the Joint Undertaking
(JU) ENIAC, a 5 B€ public-private
partnership between the European Commission, European Member States and Industry. In parallel,
another JU Advanced Research &
Technology for Embedded Intelligence and Systems (ARTEMIS ) at
3+B€ aims to implement a coherent research agenda for embedded
computing systems.
Also two big flagship projects
have been approved to date under
the 7th Framework and will continue
under the new framework program
"Horizon 2020" [38]. The first is the
Graphene Flagship (www.grapheneflagship.eu) and the second the
Human Brain Project (www.humanbrainproject.eu), each of them funded by 1 B€ over the next 10 years.
Beginning in 2014, the new
fra mework pro g ra m "Hor izon
2020" (H2020) covering the period
2014-2020 started delivering activities and funding opportunities.
This 70+B€ program targets 6.6 B€
funding for KETs and 7.5 B€ for
ICT. The program also includes the
participation of the European Commission in a new public private
partnership, the 5 B€ Joint Undertaking "ECSEL" combining both
the JUs ENIAC and ARTEMIS, the
technology platform EPoSS, their
member states, and their industry
associations under one umbrella.
The new JU is covering research
and innovation from nanoelectronics technology and components
up to cyber-physical systems and
related applications. The micro- and
nanoelectronics research and innovation activities in H2020, planned
to be executed in the JU ECSEL,
include areas of opportunity for
high demand growth [40] such as
1) areas of above average growth
∕

JUNE 2015

http://www.graphene http://www.flagship.eu http://www.human http://www.brainproject.eu

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015