At the beginning of 2006 Minatec had almost 4,000 people working on the site:

• 1,000 students
• 200 researchers and faculty members
• 1,500 researchers
• 1,000 direct industrial jobs

Minatec centre objectives:

Maintaining and developing the international competitivity of the Grenoble area:

• Increasing Grenoble-Isère's drawing power for top grade academics and students, and scientists and researchers of international standing;
• Developing the level of scientific and technological creativity, in particular thanks to pluridisciplinary working (materials, biology, software, etc.), and mixing of backgrounds (industry, research, teaching);
• Streamlining the innovation process and its take-up in industry, a key element for creating added value and jobs in the face of keen competition.

Main project characteristics

• All in one place to concentrate resources and skills;
• Critical mass to constitute one of the key international centres;
• Pluridisciplinary working to master the growing complexity of products;
• Synergy between basic and applied researchers, and industry to streamline innovation process;
• Close fit between teaching, research and technology transfer to cover the whole innovation process, from ideas to industrial output.

Construction project components

The buildings due to open officially in June comprise 45,000 sq m of laboratory, office and clean room space.

The building's components reflect the centre's three pronged action – teaching, research and industrial transfer. The project includes:

• Teaching, with two Grenoble- INP engineering schools, specializing in electronics and physics (Enserg and ENSPG) and the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (Cime); and a new Centre for Continuous Training in Microelectronics and Microsystems;
• Research, with laboratories operated by CEA-Leti and Grenoble-INP. Many teams will be working in joint research units affiliated to CNRS and Université Joseph Fourier (UJF) and other partners. The centre as a whole will closely connect upstream and applied research. It will draw on the existing clean rooms at CEA-Leti and two new CEA buildings dedicated respectively to advanced components (microelectronics, microsystems, etc.) and smart devices (RFID tags, smart cards, mobile phones, smart cars, etc.).
• Industrial transfer, with a High Technology building to accommodate start-ups during their growth phase and laboratories jointly operated by large firms and research organizations such as CEA-Leti.

Lastly Minatec will have a special building, the Maison des Micro et Nanotechnologies, to manage internal coordination, assistance for all participants and promotion of the centre at home and abroad.

Your AEPI contact: Nicolas BEROUD

More info: www.minatec.com