Today, the nanoelectronics research center IMEC and Panasonic Corporation have signed a joint research contract concerning the most advanced technologies in the semiconductor, networks, wireless, and biomedical fields. Research will be carried out at the Leuven (Belgium) facilities and IMEC's research unit at Holst Centre in Eindhoven (the Netherlands).
Since 2004, Panasonic has been participating in IMEC's joint research platform on the most advanced semiconductor process technologies as a core partner[1] to accelerate its open innovation in this field. The world's first mass production of the system-on-chip with 65nm and 45nm processes such as Panasonic's "UniPhierR" [2] uses the results of the joint research with IMEC. Now, a comprehensive joint research program covering most of the research domains of IMEC will start by expanding the collaboration scope from advanced semiconductor process technology to include application areas of semiconductors.
For this purpose, the Panasonic IMEC Center will be established at the IMEC premises in December 2008. It will conduct R&D on network technology such as dynamically reconfigurable software-defined radio[3], ultra-low power consumption wireless communication technology for healthcare and lifestyle monitoring[4] and biomedical technology such as next generation biosensors.
Recently, thanks to the evolution of systems-on-chip, consumer electronics have advanced with higher performance, smaller size and lower power consumption. Future evolution of semiconductor technologies and integration with various other technologies is expected to further broaden application domains. In order to accelerate such evolution and integration of different technologies, joint research among the world class resarch institutes is essential.
Panasonic is enhancing its R&D in networks, healthcare devices and semiconductor technologies in order to realize an environmentally-friendly ubiquitous networked society.
Panasonic will make further acceleration of R&D on cutting-edge technologies by expanding the scheme of joint research with IMEC, the world outstanding nanoelectronics research center as well as the world-leading research center in applications of semiconductor technology.