How do we keep Europe as a global competitive player in the semiconductor industry? Luc van den Hove, President of Imec, asked this question at the 5th Brussels SEMI Forum this morning.
"We have considerable strengths in Europe," said van den Hove, "we have the world’s best R&D, to universities, LET, Fraunhofer, Imec. We have some of the world’s best equipment suppliers. We have some of the world’s best materials suppliers. We have a strong value chain . But are we working together in a productive way to leverage this capability?"
"We need smart, open, innovation," concluded van den Hove, "we need to share the risk. We need to bring the best brains of the world together. We need to be global. There’s no point keeping it to Europe. Look at the Japanese who tried to keep it inside Japan. Innovation has to occur globally."
"If you want to be the best in your region you have to be best globally," added van den Hove.
"Imec is the world’s largest nanoelectronics R&D centre – offering value to all the key players. Virtually all of the top leading companies are working with Imec and coming here to Europe for R&D. We have the top IDMs, the top fabless companies and the top four foundries. We have the materials suppliers and the equipment suppliers."
Imec has 3,000 researchers, a budget of Euros 300m and has spent Euros 2bn on research in the last ten years.
"If Europe doesn’t work together with the world leaders, then the world leaders will work together without Europe," said van den Hove.
He concluded that: "Europe is not making efficient use of its strengths. We are deploying R&D resources in sub-critical and devolved ways. We need world class structures to build critical mass. We need to strengthen these strengths."
Van den Hove thought that: "European instruments should be set up to stimulate cross-Europe networks, and European money should be used to make Europe stronger."