MEDEA+ PRESENTATION

MEDEA+ key data

Duration: 8 year programme (2001-2008, in two phases of four years each).

Projects: 90 projects labelled
as per September 2008, including 58 already finished.
These projects are the most advanced research challenges in microelectronics applications and their enabling technologies.

Workforce: around 3000 scientists and engineers from 385 partners from 22 European countries.

Partners: major microelectronics manufacturers, systems houses, SME's, universities and institutes. In all MEDEA+ projects:
- 40% of the partners are small companies,
- 33% are large companies,
- 26% are research institutes and universities.
more about partners

MEDEA+ is an industry-initiated pan-European Programme for advanced co-operative Research and Development in Microelectronics. It has been set up and labelled within the framework of EUREKA (E! 2365) to ensure Europe's continued technological and industrial competitiveness in this sector. The EUREKA label was granted by the Ministerial Conference in Hanover on 23 June 2000.

MEDEA+ started in January 2001 and focuses on "system innovation on silicon".

The central objective of the industry-driven multi-project MEDEA+ programme is to stimulate innovation and provide the technology platform, which will allow the European microelectronics industry to stay in the group of worldwide leaders. This transborder co-operation will move our economies into the Information Age, contributing to the creation of higher added value and increased employment.

MEDEA+ channels private and public funding into microelectronics research & development projects. They associate semiconductor manufacturers, their suppliers, system companies and design houses, private research institutes and the academic world. This co-operation helps participants to share know-how and speed-up projects. It reduces cost and the big risks, which are inherent to innovative high-tech R&D.

In line with the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), the MEDEA+ technologies projects prepare the basis for advanced applications worldwide. The applications projects proposed by the system houses and their semiconductor suppliers, cover a broad spectrum of market areas and prepare the foundations for market-leading Information and Communication Technology development in Europe.

In the following "MEDEA+ Programme Characteristics" more information is given on history, status, organisation, interfacing, facts achievements and figures.

MEDEA+, building on MEDEA and on JESSI

Financed by the MEDEA+ partners and by European national Governments, MEDEA+ is building on the achievements of its forerunner Programmes JESSI (Joint European Submicron Silicon; 1989 - 1996) and MEDEA (Microelectronics Development for European Applications; 1997 - 2000), also executed within the EUREKA framework.

JESSI, a programme that concentrated on deeper co-operation between European semiconductor companies, was crucial for Europe's microelectronics industry in closing the gap in key technologies with the global competitors from the USA and from Asia / Pacific.

The aim of the following MEDEA programme was to strengthen the global competitiveness of the European microelectronics industry through R&D co-operation along the supply chain. This was largely achieved by increasing the participation of systems houses in application domains strategic for Europe: telecommunications, consumer and automotive electronics.
(For details see the "MEDEA: A four-year success story" brochure).

In 1998 for the first time all three major European microelectronics companies, Philips Semiconductors, STMicroelectronics and Siemens Semiconductors (today Infineon Technologies), have entered the Top 10 ranking of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. In 1989 they were only positioned as #10, 13 and 16.