CATRENE MANAGEMENT TEAM COMPLETED
CATRENE, the new EUREKA cluster for Application and Technology Research on NanoElectronics announced today that Werner Mohr has been appointed Vice- Chairman for the cluster programme, effective immediately.
 
Paris, 16 June, 2008 - Werner Mohr, born October 8, 1947 in Prien am Chiemsee, Germany, graduated with a Ph.D. in physics at Munich Technical University. In 1979, he entered the Semiconductor division of Siemens AG and started his career as engineer for process and product engineering, later as head of manufacturing engineering. In 1997, he was appointed Vice President of the Frontends in Munich, Regensburg and Villach/Austria, and of the Mask House in Munich.

With the foundation of Infineon Technologies AG in 1999, Werner Mohr assumed the position of Senior Vice President of Corporate Frontends and was, as such, member in a number of affiliated Supervisory Boards and Boards of Directors outside of Germany. Since 2002, he was nominated member of the SEMI European Advisory Board, and recently member of the SEMI Russian Advisory Committee.

At the end of May 2008, Werner Mohr retired from his active positions in Infineon Technologies. His excellence and his international experience ensure that he will be an essential pillar in the CATRENE organisation and in supporting the European Semiconductor and Electronic Industry.

CATRENE ANNOUNCING FIRST CALL FOR PROJECT PROPOSALS
CATRENE, the recently approved EUREKA Cluster for Application and Technology Research on NanoElectronics (∑! 4140) is extending an invitation to Europe’s high tech industry, small and medium sized enterprises as well as research institutes and academia to participate in its first call for project proposals.
 
Paris, 26 February, 2008 - This first call will open from February 29, 2008 and close on April 23, 2008. Based on a diligent evaluation and project selection process, project labelling is foreseen as of or planned for September 30, 2008.

CATRENE projects are complying with the ambition of Europe’s industry to deliver nano-/microelectronics solutions that respond to the needs of society at large, improving the economic prosperity in Europe and reinforcing the ability of its industry to be at the forefront of the global competition. “In the foreseeable future, the role of electronics and information systems will further increase, as the European society is faced with structural problems such as an ageing population, exploding health care cost, transportation bottlenecks, rising energy costs and the need to increase productivity”, stated Enrico Villa, Chairman of CATRENE, and concluded: ”these societal challenges are major opportunities for Europe’s industry to be the first to address new lead markets”.

CATRENE builds on the success of previous EUREKA programmes (JESSI, MEDEA, and MEDEA+) in fostering the continued development of a dynamic European eco-system with the critical mass necessary to compete at a global level in high technology industries.

Information and guidelines for the preparation of project proposals are accessible on the CATRENE web pages: www.CATRENE.org section Project Calls, where the CATRENE White Book, which forms the working basis for cluster projects, can also be downloaded.

CATRENE APPOINTS NEW MANAGEMENT
CATRENE, the recently approved EUREKA Cluster for Application and Technology Research on NanoElectronics, today announced two new members of management:
 
Paris, 21 February, 2008 - Starting from February 01, Enrico Villa has been appointed CATRENE Chairman, succeeding Jozef Cornu, who had accepted a CEO position in a major international company for imaging systems and IT solutions.

Enrico Villa, born 1941 in Vimercate, Italy, graduated in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration at Milano University. He started his professional career as market analyst, joining thereafter SGS Fairchild, later SGS Thomson, in several key technical and market positions. In 1987, Mr. Villa was appointed Vice President for External Technological Coordination and General Manager of SGS Thomson Microelettronica, the Italian subsidiary of the then newly merged STMicroelectronics. In January 2000, he was promoted Corporate Vice President for the Europe region and took on the mission to reinforce ST’s leading position in sales in Europe. In 2005, he became Executive Vice President in ST’s Corporate Executive Committee. End of 2007, Mr. Villa retired from STMicroelectronics.

Over and above his varied functions in ST, E. Villa has been active in several industry associations: in ECCA, the Italian Association for Electrical and Electronic Companies, or as European Chairman of the Joint Steering Committee of the World Semiconductor Council.

At the same time Jacques Dulongpont has taken over the responsibility as new CATRENE Office Director. Dulongpont, born in 1951, graduated from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA Lyon - France) and from the Institut de Formations Sociales pour Ingénieurs (IEFSI Lille France). In 1977, he started in Thomson CSF Telecommunications (now Thales) as designer for analogue and digital chips and joined Alcatel Mobile Communications in 1988 to build-up a chip design center for development of GSM chip sets. From 1993 onwards, he was assigned to lead the signal processing activities of Alcatel Mobile Communications for wireless modems and audio applications in addition.

With the transition of Alcatel’s chip design activities to STMicroelectronics in 2002, he joined with his team the cellular business unit of STMicroelectronics and was responsible for the design center in Paris.

In 2005 he was promoted to manage on three STMicroelectronics locations architecture-teams for defining applications of multimedia platforms based on the Nomadik chip.

The high profile of the new management, their international experience, knowledge and expertise will ensure that CATRENE will enjoy the same high appreciation as its predecessors JESSI, MEDEA and MEDEA+.

MEDEA+ formally will run until year end 2008 and is managed by the CATRENE management team.

MEDEA+ ENTERS ITS CLOSING YEAR WITH FLYING COLOURS
Success paves the way for new European R&D Champion, CATRENE
 
Budapest, 27 November, 2007 - At the MEDEA+ Annual Forum, held in Budapest on November 26/27, an impressing success story on major achievements in micro- and nanoelectronic innovations was delivered. In the rapidly changing global industrial landscape, Europe’s high-tech industry is exposed to ever-increasing technological, economical and societal challenges but has a clear vision on how to exploit new market opportunities.

Out of the 77 labeled MEDEA+ projects, representing about 20 000 person-years, some 48 projects have already been successfully completed and another 9 projects will finish at year end, while another 20 projects will continue in 2008 or even beyond.

Currently, 465 partner organizations from 22 countries are involved in project consortia and the trans-national nature of MEDEA+ is illustrated by the fact that, on average, partners for a project come from five different countries.

"MEDEA+ is perfectly in line with the planning," commented Jozef Cornu, MEDEA+ Chairman. "It has delivered important results in applications ranging from wireless communications to smart cards and automotive electronics, helping European industry to maintain leading positions in these strategic global industries. These results are a tribute to efficient culture and infrastructure of cooperation developed by MEDEA+ and the preceding MEDEA and JESSI programmes."

To maintain the momentum of the programme, MEDEA+ stakeholders jointly decided in May to launch another call for project proposals. This call resulted in 24 project outlines, clearly demonstrating industry’s continued commitment to substantial investment in Research and Development (R&D). The project evaluation process will finish with the project labeling at the end of 2007. This may top-up required resources of the programme by another 10%. With a programme duration of eight years, MEDEA+ will elapse at the end of 2008.

Chairman Cornu also highlighted the new EUREKA strategic initiative, called CATRENE, "Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics", launched October 25, 2007. This cluster-programme embodies the ambition of Europe and European companies to deliver nano- and microelectronics solutions that enable "Lighthouse Projects". Lighthouse projects address large and global socioeconomic needs such as transportation, healthcare, security, energy, environment, entertainment and communications. They also reflect a clear vision of the technical challenges and of the expected benefits and economic returns and are at the heart of public needs.

The principal added value of the lighthouse projects will be the ability to create a critical mass in terms of R&D scope, effort, participation and support from public authorities around well-understood societal and technical challenges. Experience has shown that the lighthouse philosophy is the way European leadership positions can be built. From those global lighthouse projects, nanoelectronic applications will be defined with the technologies needed to enable them. "For example, direct communication between objects - the internet of things -", said Jozef Cornu, "will become a reality as more and more objects in our environment become intelligent and generate ever more data."

CATRENE, which will build on the highly successful European MEDEA+ nanoelectronics programme, will start in January 2008, with the first call for project proposals expected in the first half of 2008.

"We are concentrating on lead markets, where nanoelectronics will make the difference, and CATRENE is the Research and Development program that will make those technology and application developments happen", concluded Jozef Cornu.

Taking advantage of experience gained, the same team will manage the overlap between the end of MEDEA+ and the ramp-up of the CATRENE programme to ensure full continuity in research and continued efficiency.

CATRENE PROGRAMME TO SUCCEED MEDEA+ AS EUROPEAN NANOELECTRONICS R&D CHAMPION

Paris, 26 October, 2007 -

MEDEA+, the EUREKA pan-European Programme for advanced co-operative Research and Development in Microelectronics, today announced details of the new EUREKA programme called CATRENE (Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics) that will take Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics) that will take up the challenge of increasing Europe’s strength in micro- and nanoelectronics after the highly successful MEDEA+ programme reaches its conclusion in 2008. A public/private partnership aimed at ensuring the continued development of European expertise in semiconductor technology and applications, CATRENE will build on the success of MEDEA+ and the previous EUREKA programmes JESSI and MEDEA in fostering the continued development of a dynamic European ecosystem with the critical mass necessary to compete at a global level in high technology industries as these move into the era of nanoelectronics.

Since its inception in 2001, MEDEA+ has made significant contributions to establishing and maintaining European leadership in fields ranging from smart card and image sensing technologies to automotive electronics. European IC companies have successfully developed three basic CMOS process generations in a time schedule in line with or even ahead of the global ITRS roadmap. Three European semiconductor companies are ranked amongst the world wide top ten and Europe’s semiconductor industry has 10% of the world wide market. European champions with a strong global market position as wafer processing equipment suppliers, lithography tool and infrastructure suppliers as well as substrate and material suppliers have been added to the industrial landscape.

Like MEDEA+, CATRENE embraces all key actors in the value chain – including applications, technology, materials and equipment suppliers – as well as involving industrial companies of all sizes, universities and other research institutions, supported by Public Authorities. In this way CATRENE will benefit from the strong infrastructure for cross-border cooperation that has been developed by MEDEA+ and its predecessors.

An important feature of CATRENE is the concept of Lighthouse Projects, which address major socioeconomic needs such as transportation, healthcare, security, energy and entertainment through focussed R&D programmes. In the foreseeable future, the role of electronics and information systems will further increase as European society is faced with structural problems such as ageing of the population, exploding healthcare cost, transportation bottlenecks, rising energy costs and the need to increase productivity to be competitive on a worldwide basis. These societal challenges are also major opportunities for European industry and are designed to help European companies to address these new lead markets and to become worldwide market leaders. The “umbrella” lighthouse projects will serve as a focus for specific technology and applications development projects that address these challenges.

“For more than a decade, the EUREKA JESSI, MEDEA and MEDEA+ programmes have made it possible for Europe’s industry to reinforce its position in semiconductor process technology, manufacturing and applications, and to become a key supplier to markets such as telecommunications, consumer electronics and automotive electronics”, said Jozef Cornu, Chairman of MEDEA+ and designated Chairman of CATRENE. “Nanoelectronics will offer enormous opportunities to those who are the first to master and bring to market new technologies and applications and we believe that CATRENE will play a vital role in helping Europe’s microelectronics industry to go from strength to strength.”

While the JESSI, MEDEA and MEDEA+ programmes were divided into technology and applications sub-programmes, CATRENE recognises the increasing convergence of technology and applications. It will therefore focus on large identified application markets, deriving from these the roadmap of required technologies. Key technology goals include maintaining and increasing Europe’s strength in IP (Intellectual Property) across the entire electronics supply chain and its leadership in lithography and Siliconon-Insulator materials; ensuring that European companies are among the world leaders in the advanced semiconductor technologies that allow entire systems to be integrated in a single package; and strengthening European expertise in applying a deep knowledge of semiconductor process technology to efficient design for new electronics applications.