IMEC is a world-leading independent research centre in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC vzw is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has a sister company in the Netherlands (IMEC-NL), offices in the US, China, Taiwan, and representatives in Japan.
Its staff of more than 1,650 people includes over 500 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2007, IMEC’s revenue (P&L) was 244.5 million euro. IMEC’s More Moore research targets semiconductor scaling for sub-32nm nodes. With its More than Moore research, IMEC invents technology for nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer solutions, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, organic electronics and GaN power electronics.
IMEC researches techniques to make transistors smaller, now concentrating on 22nm technology. Transistors are the basic building blocks of chips for logic and memory, which are both developed at IMEC. The continued miniaturization of transistors makes electronic appliances such as DVD players, digital cameras, or mp3 players cheaper. And they have more functions and consume less energy.
Until now, transistors could be scaled with relatively well-known techniques. But the physical limits of such scaling are approaching. To overcome those limits, new materials, architectures, and techniques will be required. To keep on reducing the cost of ICs per function, one possibility is to move to 3-dimensional stacking of chips. 3D chip stacking allows extending the number of functions on a chip well beyond the near-term capacity of traditional scaling. But this presumes an efficient use of the 3D real-estate, and is challenging both from the perspective of design and technology.
IMEC’s research bridges the gap between fundamental research at universities and technological development in industry. Its unique processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure and its strong and worldwide network position IMEC as a key partner for shaping the technology for future systems.
Project Members
Julien Ryckaert (Technical Lead)
Dragomir Milojevic
Former Members
Pol Marchal
Nikolaos Minas
