European Commission 


                                                        Research Directorate-General
World class incubator set to boost nanotechnology innovation
Minatec - the centre for micro and nanotechnology innovation - is located in the high-tech community that has grown up around Grenoble in the Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. It was created by the electronics and information technology laboratory of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA-Leti) and the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG). By bringing together pure and applied research, industry and educational resources in the same place, it forms a world-class incubator for the creativity, excellence and training needed to improve Europe's edge in the competitive global environment - and will play a key role in the European Research Area (ERA).
In all, the Minatec initiative will involve 3,000 people, with half involved directly in research. Its educational activities currently produce around 200 graduate engineers and 50 PhDs each year - figures set to double when new premises become fully operational in 2005. 
Technology pole
Even before the completion of a € 150 million purpose-built complex, Minatec benefits from the remarkable array of advanced microelectronics and nanotechnology facilities centred on Grenoble. 
The internationally-oriented scientific and technological community in the Isère valley area concentrates more than 43,000 strategic jobs around a city of 500,000 people. Several advanced technology parks house research, design and production facilities for leading microelectronics companies such as STMicroelectronics, Philips and Motorola, leading electronics companies such as Thales, together with equipment and materials suppliers and a growing number of innovative SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises).
Major resources available to Minatec include: 
? Plato, the open technology platform set up by Leti; 
? Leti's microtechnology laboratories in the CEA Grenoble centre; and 
? Nanotechnology laboratories operated by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Institute of Structural Biology (IBS) at the CEA Department of Fundamental Research (DRF), INPG and the Insitut Max Von Laue-Paul Langevin (ILL). 
Building networks for the future
Minatec offers industry extensive opportunities for technology transfer through R&D contracts and participation in joint laboratories and consortia, as well as by nurturing start-up companies. In addition, it organises collaborative projects and alliances with similar centres in France, throughout Europe and in the USA and Asia. Communication with outside partners and help in organising international conferences such as the current EC-NSF Workshop are important aspects of this knowledge-sharing role.
As part of ERA, Grenoble is keen to build the first European hub for networks comprising technology platforms and centres of excellence, with an alliance since June 2001 with the Swiss centre for electronics and microtechnology (CSEM) and links to organisations such as the IMEC microelectronics research centre in Belgium, , and the NMRC information and communication technologies research institute - Ireland's only EU-designated research infrastructure. 
Many Grenoble organisations already play an active part in programmes such as EUREKA, Euraccess, Nexus, Eurimus, Europractice and MEDEA+.
Established research facilities
The Leti laboratories are the largest of those at the Grenoble site, focusing principally on applied research in the fields of nanoelectronics and nanosystems. They incorporate a complete R&D production line for 200-mm silicon wafers and a line for non-silicon materials such as plastics and glass. Top-specification clean rooms are available for processing nanoelectronics and nanomaterials - while the silicon line includes special equipment for nanolithography, nanoetching, nanodeposition and nanocharacterisation. 
Current projects are aimed at the development of non-volatile memories, including nanostructured gates; nanoelectronics transistors; biochips and nanophotonics devices. Total investment to date is € 250 million, and a further € 200 million will follow within the next two years.
DRF plans to investigate concepts and ideas related to applications that have already been identified for nano-structures such as nanotubes and nanowires. More researchers in other Grenoble-based nanotechnology laboratories, aided by access to the synchrotron radiation and neutronic diffraction facilities of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and ILL, are studying the physical properties of materials at nano-scale.
In the field of fabrication techniques, studies currently underway include droplet nucleation on a corrugated substrate, aggregate deposits, synthesis in plasma deposit micelles and laser pyrolysis.
Key biological research programmes, notably those co-ordinated by IBS and the Life Science Directorate at CEA are also deeply involved in nanotechnology - particularly in structural biology applied to protein structure and structure-function links.
Added value for industry 
Many joint undertakings that already involve local laboratories and industry will be further strengthened by the integration activities of Minatec. The new centre will provide teams working in nanotechnology with the means to produce nano-devices in a multidisciplinary working environment where physicists, chemists, technology experts and biologists will be able to pool their experience.
Buildings constructed over an 8-ha area on a 23-ha site will include an advanced components centre undertaking wafer testing, characterisation, simulation, modelling and design for microelectronics, microsystems and biochips. An advanced systems centre will focus on design and testing of smart devices such as intelligent labels, smart cards and portable telephones. 
These units will maintain close links with their counterparts at the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) and the Software Technology Centre (CTL), where 150 people are involved in research on topics related to embedded software and chip design.
Clean rooms in the high-technology buildings will be open to start-ups in their growth phase, while pilot lines set up by major industrial groups or innovative medium-sized companies will also be available.
Boost to education
Completion of the new Minatec premises will give a big boost to micro- and nanotechnology education. The complex will eventually accommodate over 1,000 engineering students, 500 trainees, 400 instructors and more than 2,000 researchers, engineers and technicians from research bodies and industry.
Relevant INPG courses are today split over several sections - microelectronics at the Ecole nationale supérieure d'électronique et de radioélectricité de Grenoble (Enserg), physics at the Ecole nationale supérieure de physique (ENSPG), and computer science and telecommunications at the Ecole nationale supérieure d'informatique et de la mathématiques appliquées de Grenoble (Ensimag). For Grenoble's Université Joseph Fourrier, teaching is concentrated at Institut des Sciences et Technologies de Grenoble (ISTG) and Centre interuniversitaire de microélectronique (Cime). When ENSPG, Enserg and the associated research laboratories move to the centre, they will enjoy technological resources that are on a par with the best in the world.
Several new courses are already being planned, one of which will address biotechnology, and particularly biochips, at the meeting point between life science and nanotechnology. Practical training for engineers and PhDs will be boosted by the introduction of additional modules designed to make more room for nano-physics and nano-science, including:
* A new postgraduate course on engineering of controlled atmosphere (clean concept) industrial facilities;
* Additional teaching for PhD students in nano-science and advanced micro- and nano-electronic devices;
* Summer courses and schools, in particular an international post-doctorate school on nanotechnology and nano-science, organised around major research facilities involving CEA, UJF and INPG;
* International programmes (similar to masters' degrees) for foreign students in partnership with universities abroad; and
* Continuous training schemes leading to a qualification or diploma.
The overall objective is to make Minatec Europe's leading centre for innovation and expertise in micro- and nanotechnology, attracting high-calibre students, researchers and engineers to meet the growing demand from European enterprises and laboratories.
Contact:	Jean-Charles Guibert, Minatec
(email: jcguibert@cea.fr; tel: +33 4 38 78 35 81)


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