The two day conference for Semiconductor, Nanotechnology and Optoelectronics professionals organized by JEMI UK Ltd has just concluded with an overwhelming feeling that the community needs the support of the government through the TSB to support and encourage the commercialization of innovative new technologies. The meeting, chaired by Professor Ravi Silva FREng, Director of the Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, showcased the huge talent in innovative manufacturing present in the country which at present contributes to a supply chain in equipment manufacturing with sales in excess of £20bn. Road mapping exercises for the Nanoelectronics Sector were also concluded, with a report to be submitted to the TSB on the findings. There was a common view held by all present that the need for innovative centres to produce demonstrator products close to the consumer via an institute such as a Fraunhofer type model was long overdue in the UK.

 

The meeting kicked off with Professor Silva outlining the need to use technopreneurship in order to pull the UK out of recession, and highlighting the need for high technology innovation centres such as the Advanced Technology Institute he heads at Surrey to move even closer to an industry facing position to harness the potential of UK academia for technology pull. The low carbon economy is an ideal challenge to pull through such innovation, much like the wealth creation that has taken place in the past in highly industrialist nations with industrial revolutions.

 

The second day focused on the impact that micro and nano-electronics technologies could make on the low carbon economy with speakers from Osram Opto Semiconductors, NanoGaN Ltd and sponsor organization Plasma-Term focusing on the huge impact that LEDs could make on carbon reduction. This highlighted that although there have been huge strides in LED efficiency and that some sectors such as the automotive sector are early adopters there is still a significant technology improvement to be made to reach the required target efficiencies of these devices;

135Lumen/W; a factor of 6 over the current level. Bedwyr Humphrey’s of NanoGaN Ltd presented the Technology which NanoGaN Ltd have developed in the UK to help bridge this gap. The total potential annual saving in this sector is around 30% of current electricity used on lighting, equating to 30Mt of CO2 per year.

 

Malcolm Penn of Industry forecasting firm Future Horizons put this all in context with their predictions concerning the industry growth rate for 2010, concluding that the market was seriously under funded and that this would have to change if capacity constraint were not to be encountered.

 

The meeting concluded on a high note with the Managing Director of Plessey Semiconductors pledging to support any UK manufacturing initiative by acting as a node to help manufacture innovative products as part of a virtual Technology

Innovation Centre in High Tech Equipment Manufacture.

 

S2K is organised by JEMI UK Ltd and sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government and Welsh Electronics Forum.

 

Other sponsors of this year’s conference included: Plasam-Therm, Compound Semiconductor, EuroAsia Semiconductor, Physics World and LEDs Magazine.

 

First launched in the year 2000, Semiconductor 2000 as it was then known was designed to create a platform for dialogue and business development for the semiconductor industry. The event now supports many of the niche sectors which have developed over the past decade as well as supporting the traditional spirit of the event which was to give European based companies and in particular UK companies a global overview of market development and upcoming trends.

For more information on S2K, visit www.semiconductor2k.com or contact the JEMI office on +44 131 650 7815 or jemi-enquiries@see.ed.ac.uk