Glasgow gets Euro grant

Glasgow University has received £750,000 from the European Commission for three projects that could, it is claimed, revolutionise the electronics industry.

The DUALLOGIC, NANOSIL and REALITY projects aim to create faster and bigger electronic chips to power consumer electronic products.

The DUALLOGIC project will investigate the use of different channel materials to make chips faster and more powerful. The project will, for the first time, investigate using germanium and compound semiconductor channel materials in a single chip on a silicon substrate to increase the performance of individual transistors.

The NANOSIL and REALITY projects will commence later in the year.

‘This funding is really important for the UK electronics industry which suffers from a relatively low level of investment in semiconductor device and technology research,’ said Professor Asen Asenov, lead investigator at Glasgow. ‘The results of the projects will be particularly important for the vibrant and innovative UK design industry, which increasingly needs wider access to this kind of technology and device knowledge in order to remain competitive in an international market.’

The projects will be run in collaboration with leading European manufacturers and research institutes. The funding was provided through the first call of proposals in the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Program for collaborative European research in the area of Information and Communication Technologies.