Date: 01/09/2009

European co-operative effort called IMPROVE to advance semiconductor manufacturing

Europe's semiconductor companies and the academia have formed co-operative group called 'IMPROVE' to enhance region's competition in semiconductor manufacturing. IMPROVE (Implementing manufacturing science solutions to increase equipment productivity and fab performance) aimed at making advanced chips but at lower manufacturing cost. This project's duration is from year 2009 to end of 2011 and it includes software companies, semiconductor vendors with production sites in Europe, chip fab equipment providers and academic institutes from Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal.

IMPROVE focuses on improving the manufacturing process as well as machine performance with less downtime or maintenance time. Typical complex IC manufacturing involves 550 individual process steps consuming 12 to 16 weeks of production time.

With an approximate budget of Euro 37.7 million funded partly by the European Commission and participating nations, this project is jointly undertaken by the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) under a sub-program called "SP4 Nanoelectronics for Energy & Environment".

IMPROVE project partners include semiconductor and chip equipment manufacturers and software suppliers such as AP Technologies (Germany); Atmel (France); Austria Microsystems (Austria); camLine (Germany); CNR-IMM (Italy); Critical Software (Portugal); Infineon Technologies (Germany); InReCon (Germany); Intel (Ireland); iSyst (Germany); LAM (Italy); Lexas Research (Ireland); Numonyx (Italy), PDF Solutions (France), Probayes (France); STMicroelectronics (France), Straatum (Ireland) and Techno Fittings (Italy).

Academic partners include CEA LETI (France); Dublin City University (Ireland); Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne (France); Fachhochschule Wiener Neustadt (Austria); Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology (IISB, Germany); GSCOP (France); Italian National Council of Research (Italy); LTM CNRS (France); the German Universities of Augsburg and of Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Italian Universities of Milano, of Padova and of Pavia.