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“Design for Micro & Nano Manufacture” Initiative over 4 Years
Berlin, Germany 3 Sep 2004: A “Design for Micro & Nano Manufacture (PATENT-DfMM)”
Network of Excellence (NoE) has been launched in January 2004 and will be
funded by the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies programme
(IST - unit C2) for 4 years. The project, based on the excellence of its 24
mostly academic partners, aims to address the underlying engineering science
to ensure that problems affecting the manufacture and reliability of products
based on micro & nano technologies
(M&NT) can be addressed before prototype and pre-production.
PATENT-DfMM is guided by an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) to ensure the
orientation towards applicability in industry. "Today most microsystems are
designed without proper considerations for final testing, reliability and
manufacturability", said Benedetto Vigna, MEMS Business Unit Director,
STMicroelectronics Italy and chairman of the IAB. "These issues are tackled
on a contingency basis only once a problem arises. Internal communication
among different teams is important in order to implement a design methodology
that will increase the rate of success and shorten time-to-market for future
micro & nano technology based products."
The project plans to integrate what are currently isolated and dispersed
groups with valuable skills, create critical mass in the field of Design for
Micro & Nano Manufacture in Europe and provide researchers with access to
state-of-the-art equipment and technology. "PATENT-DfMM will provide direct
services to industry with an emphasis on small and medium-sized companies,
in the form of a one-stop shop", explains project co-ordinator Andrew Richardson,
Director of the Centre for Microsystems Engineering, Lancaster University, UK.
"These services will be based on the combined skills and resources of the new
technical community formed by the project."
PATENT-DfMM is an initiative that will build on specific industrial needs,
which have been defined by key commercial players over the past several years
and studied by the NEXUS Methodology Working Group "Design Modelling Simulation"
workshops. The project is planning to work closely with other European projects
and also with initiatives worldwide like the MEMS Industry Group in the US.
An accompanying educational programme addressing DfMM topics in industry and
academia is currently being developed. The first "Design for Micro & Nano
Manufacture" Summer school will take place at ISLI, Livingston, Scotland,
13-15 September 2004.
More information: http://www.patent-dfmm.org.
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