The EU has identified the need for the implementation of industrial pilot lines to establish future key enabling technologies (among others microelectronics and microsystems technology) in Europe. This is a measure to help the bridge the gap over the so called "valley of death" that is the main obstacle to get fundamental research results up to economic value and the market. A video describing the KET pilot lines (and among them Lab4MEMS) can be found on the ENIAC web-page: http://www.eniac.eu/web/index.php
In this project industrial pilot lines for the new emerging microsystem technologies based on piezoelectric and magnetic MEMS and the very important issue of packaging technologies will be established and its capability demonstrated.
The project is co-financed by the ENIAC program (Call 2012-12) under the pilot line topic.
The industrial pilot lines will be established in Agrate, Italy and Malta as an add-on at the already existing fabs of ST microelectronics, which is also coordinating the project.
The consortium consists of 20 partners from all over Europe including industry, research institutes and universities. SINTEF's role in the project is the development of piezoMEMS technology, establishment of a small scale pilot line for piezoMEMS at the MiNaLab facilities, design and fabrication of a new type of piezoelectric ultrasound transducer together with the Norwegian SME partner Sonitor and the investigation of the process flow for the packaging of such devices. In addition to that SINTEF is also the technical coordinator of the Lab4MEMS project.
The project is also a part of SINTEF's role as a piezoMEMS competence centre: www.piezomicrosystems.com