Catania, Italy — A publicly-funded European research project is targeted at developing new products and technologies aimed at energy-efficiency improvements. Participants include STMicroelectronics, Numonyx, NXP and ON Semiconductor.
The multinational/multidisciplinary program, “END — Models, Solutions, Methods and Tools for Energy-Aware Design,” was created to enhance the competitiveness of Europe’s semiconductor and electronics equipment companies in the development of products and technologies that are at the forefront of energy efficiency.
This three-year ENIAC (European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council) project will take an holistic approach, under a common design platform, to the development of modeling, simulation, design and EDA techniques for a wide range of devices and systems (digital blocks, analog/RF blocks, discrete components).
The project also will address new power supply systems, with a focus on energy management. The result is expected to deliver a comprehensive set of solutions that accounts for the energy impact during the design of heterogeneous circuits and systems.
Reducing energy consumption of electronic devices, circuits and systems, coupled with improving energy generation, conversion, storage and management capabilities represent the biggest challenges that engineers and scientists operating in the electronics sector face in the next decade, according to project participants.
“The ultimate objective of the END project is to bring innovative energy-aware design solutions and EDA technologies into the product development of the industrial partners of the Consortium,” said Salvatore Rinaudo, END project coordinator and Industrial and Multisegment Sector CAD R&D director at STMicroelectronics, in a statement. “We will enable the design and manufacture of electronic circuits that will be at the basis of the green information society of the future.”
The project will cost approximately 12.6 million Euros (about $15.6 million), with funding provided by both the ENIAC JU (Joint Undertaking) and from the public authorities of Belgium, Greece, Italy and Slovakia.
The ENIAC JU is a public-private partnership with the European Commission, Member States, Associated States and European R&D actors and leverage private and national investments.
The project partners are:
— STMicroelectronics s.r.l., Italy (Project Coordinator)
— Centro Ricerche FIAT, Italy
— ETH Lab, Eurotech Group, Italy
— Numonyx Italy, Italy
— Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per la Nanoelettronica, Italy
— Politecnico di Torino, Italy
— Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italy
— Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy
— Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy
— NXP Semiconductors, Germany
— Intracom S.A. Telecom Solutions, Greece
— inAccess Networks, Greece
— University of Patras, Greece
— ON Semiconductor, Belgium
— ON Semiconductor, Slovakia
— Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
— LEITAT Technological Center, Spain
— Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique, Switzerland.
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