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
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.
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."
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. 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.
To celebrate our 25th birthday, we organize 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. More information on www.imec25years.be