The Electronics KTN introduces our “Grand Challenges” Series of events aimed at promoting to industry the microelectronic design themes and the ‘grand challenges’ that were identified by the UKs leading academics.

Background

This event series was inspired by the work that was conducted under the initiative “Developing a Common Vision for UK Research in Microelectronic Design” supported by EPSRC Network Grant EP/D054028/1.

Following a series of meetings under the heading of “Developing a Common Vision for UK research in Microelectronic Design”, latterly funded by the EPSRC under a Network Grant of the same name, a strong consensus emerged that the subject is centred around a number of core technologies and that these can be focussed coherently under a set of Grand Challenges. An open call for Grand Challenge proposals yielded a set of strawman outlines that were discussed in detail at a 2-day meeting hosted by the University of Loughborough on 28-29 September 2006. These were refined into four Grand Challenges, described in detail in the final report from the project.

Exposure to industry

The original objective of defining these Grand Challenges was to develop a consensus as to where the major research challenges lie in the academic research community, and thereby to encourage greater coherence, communication and collaboration across the research community. The project leaders expected this to lead to an increase in the quantity and quality of microelectronic design research proposals.

With this series of events, the Electronics KTN will build upon this objective to engage industry participation and discussion, stimulating a greater level of dialogue and collaboration between industry and academia, and ultimatley knowledge transfer.