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Silicon Europe Alliance announced during Semicon Europa 2015

Silicon Europe unites the strongest European micro- and nanoelectronics clusters to form a European alliance with access to the most advanced technologies and expertise. Within the project Silicon Europe, the 6 world-class clusters Silicon Saxony (Germany), Minalogic (France), DSP Valley (Belgium), ME2C (Austria), High Tech NL and BCS NL (The Netherlands) have collaborated to create an open European collaborative platform to strengthen the leading role of the European semiconductor industry.

Another six European clusters have joined the Silicon Europe Alliance. The new members – Distretto Green & High Tech (Italy), MIDAS (Ireland), GAIA (Spain), NMI (UK), mi-Cluster (Greece) and the French SCS Cluster – enlarge the Silicon Europe partnership both geographically and technologically, enriching the microelectronics value chain, already represented within the partnership. Now the Silicon Europe Alliance unites 12 European micro- and nanoelectronics clusters with about 2,000 cluster partners from industry and science, among them innovative SMEs, leading-edge research institutions and global players such as Philips, NXP Semiconductors, Globalfoundries, Intel, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Schneider Electric and Thales.

During the Silicon Europe Steering Committee Meeting on 5th October, the new members were approved and the new board was elected for the first two years. The new board consists of the Chairman Peter Simkens (DSP Valley) and the Vice-Chairwoman Isabelle Guillaume (Minalogic). According to the statute of the new Silicon Europe Alliance Peter Simkens and Isabelle Guillaume will switch their roles for the second year.

The cluster partners are now presenting a step-by-step strategy for the time till 2018 (“Joining Forces for European Leadership for Innovative Electronics – A 5 Step Joint Action Plan”). In the paper, they identify five strategic themes that need to be addressed in order to strengthen Europe´s competitiveness. The Silicon Europe Joint Action Plan also includes an internationalisation strategy for actions beyond Europe, which will be implemented within the COSME project ESCiP (European Semiconductor Cluster Internationalisation Project).

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