| Posted: March 16, 2009 |
IMEC celebrates its 25th birthday |
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(Nanowerk News) This year, IMEC celebrates its 25th
birthday. On January 16, 1984, the memorandum of association of IMEC was
signed, and on March 15, now exactly 25 years ago, IMEC appeared as newly
established research center in the Belgian Statute Books.
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Today, 25 years later, IMEC has grown into a world-renowned institute addressing with its
nanoelectronics research some of the major challenges of our planet and its
people: communication, mobility, education, environment, energy, and the
ageing population.
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Gilbert Declerck, IMEC's CEO: "We owe our success to the grand vision and
passion of our founder, Professor Roger Baron Van Overstraeten, and to the
enthusiasm and dedication of all our co-workers. A perfect combination of
acquired knowhow and experience, with the continued influx of young talent
from all over the world has been, and still is, essential for research at
high level. But also the collaboration with the Flemish Government and
government agencies, and with universities and international and national
partners has contributed to our success. Together, we succeeded to put
Flanders on the map of micro- and nanoelectronics."
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Predicting the next 25 year is difficult. IMEC is ready to tackle the
challenges of the nanoelectronics era. Together with the leading
semiconductor companies, we will continue to scale IC technology.
Additionally, more and more attention will go to adding extra functionality
on chips. We also feel that the momentum is building to expand the other
research areas in which we are active, like solar energy, biomedical
electronics and photonics together with our academic and industrial
partners.
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IMEC aims at answering some of the grand challenges that our
society is facing. We are convinced that nanotechnology may offer solutions
to the call for affordable healthcare in our ageing society, and to the
increasing need for renewable energy supply. It is our ambition to be top
class in these strategic research domains, and to contribute to the world
of tomorrow, where centers of excellence will play and important role.
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To celebrate our 25th birthday, IMEC organizes on April 2 in Brussels, the
academic colloquium: 'Facing the world of society, science, technology,
industry and education in the 21st century'. On June 3 and 4, IMEC launches
the IMEC Technology Forum (ITF), an industry networking event that will
focus on the theme "Innovation in the next 25 years of science and
technology". The IMEC Technology Forum will bring together executives from
world-leading companies and institutes in Asia, Europe and the USA to
discuss the future of ICs and future applications for biomedical
electronics, energy and communication in the next 25 years.
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