01 Aug 2012

Canada's largest microelectronics centre opens in Québec

The Université de Sherbrooke. Québec, Canada, and industrial partners, US-based CMOS developer, Teledyne DALSA, and IBM, have officially inaugurated Canada's largest microelectronics centre, the Centre de Collaboration MiQro Innovation (C2MI).

Located in Bromont, Quebec, the C2MI aims to promote strong links between industry and academia, enabling the development and production of next-generation electronics for a host of industries from health, automotive and aerospace to environmental, information technology and telecommunications fields.

In addition to IBM and Teledyne DALSA, more than 70 other industrial partners helped to establish the centre.

“As a centre of collaboration, our role is to maintain a quality environment conducive to research and to develop synergy between complementary companies,” explains Normand Bourbonnais, president and chief executive of the C2MI. “Companies that become active members have access to a flexible infrastructure adapted to their needs, particularly for developing innovative materials, testing prototypes, or validating designs.”

“We also work to maintain the list of industrial equipment at the leading edge of technology, and we target companies that have a strong potential for collaboration with active members, in Quebec, Canada, and around the world,” he adds.

The C2MI has 15,000 m2 of space and provides companies with multiple clean rooms, specialised laboratories, technical services, and office space in two buildings that belong to the Université de Sherbrooke.

In addition to the $83 million construction of the facility, there is an array of highly sophisticated equipment worth $135 million.

The project benefited from financial support of $218.45 million from partners and from the federal and provincial governments under the Canada-Quebec Agreement of the Knowledge Infrastructure Program.

• The MiQro Innovation Collaborative Centre (MIC2) is one of five new centres to be funded by the Government of Canada through the 2010 Centres of Excellence for Commercialisation and Research (CECR) competition. The CECR program is administered by the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Secretariat, which supports successful research partnerships between universities, industry, not-for-profit organizations and government.

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