Welsh Scientists Awarded $1.86M Grant

Welsh Scientists Awarded $1.86M Grant for Energy-Saving Chip Work
Staff Reporter -- Electronic News, 8/18/2006

Welsh scientists with help from two local semiconductor companies have been awarded a $1.86 million (1 million pound) grant to drive forward smart microchip technology targeted at reducing the world's energy consumption.

The research team at Swansea University's electronics systems design center was awarded the funding through the Department of Trade and Investment's (DTI) technology transfer competition. They will carry out the project in partnership with Zetex and X-Fab, the two largest semiconductors companies in the United Kingdom.

Swansea University said its success in the DTI competition was enabled by a three year collaborative industrial research project and follow on patent and proof of concept support to develop smart microchips, funded by the Welsh Assembly.

"The Assembly Government is actively assisting collaboration between industry and academia to further increase the R&D capacity of Wales," Andrew Davies, Wales' minister for enterprise innovation and networks, explained in a statement.

The center estimates that power management through smart chip technology could allow over $400 billion in electrical energy annual savings.

"The technology has the capacity to make a significant impact both on next-generation industrial competitiveness and on sustainability issues in the field of engineering," Petar Igic, the director of the Swansea Center, said in the statement. "The commercial potential is massive."