News

On February 20, 2013, the Saxon Minister of State for Science and the Fine Arts, Prof. Sabine von Schorlemer, welcomed high-ranking representatives of European politics at the Saxony Liaison Office in Brussels.

At this meeting the Saxon Minister for Science informed her guests about the current activities of the Free State of Saxony in the field of micro- and nanoelectronics. Special emphasis was put on the European cluster alliance “Silicon Europe – The Leaders for Energy Efficient ICT Electronics” that was founded in the fall of 2012.

Four of the leading European micro- and nanoelectronic regions are joining their forces in this transnational cluster alliance. The cluster partners from Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands are united by the same goal: They want to secure and further strenghten Europe’s position as the world’s leading centre for energy-efficient micro- and nanoelectronics and information and communications technology (ICT). In order to do so, Silicon Saxony (Dresden/ Germany), DSP Valley (Belgium), Minalogic (Grenoble/ France) and High Tech NL (Eindhoven/ Netherlands) are combining their expertise in research, development and manufacturing. Together they represent about 800 research institutions and enterprises with more than 150,000 employees. Amongst them are global market leaders such as Philips, NXP, Globalfoundries, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Schneider Electric and Thales. That is what makes “Silicon Europe” one of the biggest technology clusters worldwide.

“Silicon Europe is a result of a new type of European industry policy”, says Silicon Europe coordinator Thomas Reppe. “In close cooperation with the regional business development centres we take the cluster concept of the Saxon research cluster for energy efficiency “Cool Silicon” – the transorganisational cooperation – that is already successfully working to a whole new transnational level. In this new and strong cluster alliance we not only secure the European know-how for producing KET relevant technologies. We also are jointly working on a strategic technology roadmap that can be used as a design pattern for future funding programmes and development schemes by the European Commission.”

In order to be successful the joint initiative not only needs the support of its cluster partners from industry and research but also a clear commitment from politics and administration – both in the involved states and the European level as well. To inform the political level about the activities and the importance of the cluster alliance and to gain the needed support, Prof. von Schorlemer welcomed her colleagues from the involved cluster partner’s countries as well as high-ranking representatives of the European Union to this event.
“The Minister is opening doors not only for Saxon but also European microelectronics. She already confirmed her commitment to host events like this on a regular basis in the future”, Reppe concludes.