By Desmond Hinton-Beales - 7th March 2011
Whatever the industry, KETs are as important as access to natural resources
André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé
EU digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes has said that Europe needs ICT if it is to face up to its "grand challenges".
In a recorded presentation to the international standards symposium on semiconductors in Grenoble, Kroes outlined the importance of semiconductors for Europe's response to the challenges of a "rapidly globalising economy".
Semiconductors are materials that have a resistivity between that of insulators and conductors. Their ability to conduct electricity can be changed through light, heat, or an electric or magnetic field and they are used in the construction of transistors and diodes.
Europe "can't solve its problems without ICT", she told participants in the event organised by SEMI, an international association of semiconductor manufacturers. The "right framework conditions" must be created if the EU is to compete successfully with the US and China, she added.
"Semiconductors are for ICT what grain is for agriculture, and iron and steel are for the manufacturing industry," she said.
The commission vice-president said that "Europe must retain and strengthen its R&D capabilities", and that as well as investment, this requires industries to "work for the future, instead of milking the past".
Semiconductors, said Kroes, are one of several key enabling technologies (KETs) identified by the commission as driving all other aspects of European innovation, adding that "concrete actions" should be identified and that Europe "must improve implementation".
The five of the KETs outlined by the commission are: nanotechnology, micro and nano-electronics, advanced materials, biotechnology, and photonics, all of which are directly linked to, and dependent on, advanced manufacturing.
Chair of SEMI Europe Heinz Kundert said that semiconductors are "alive in Europe" and that there is "no innovation without silicon" – one of the principle materials from which semiconductors are manufactured – and that the commission has launched the KETs to address this issue.
Kundert cited growth figures of 32 per cent for the semiconducting industry in 2010, adding that the KETs are worth up to €855bn to Europe and are hugely "important for the entire industrial base and vital for competitiveness".
President of Soitec André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, told reporters that the "focus of EU policy in innovation" is the "three pillars" of technological research, product development, and competitive manufacturing.
Auberton-Hervé said that while Europe is strong in R&D and in the introduction of products to the marketplace, the high-level expert group on key enabling technologies had concluded that advanced manufacturing is underdeveloped compared to these other areas.
"Europe has strong leaders, but must be supported to bring products to market," he said, adding that Europe has realised that "whatever the industry, KETs are as important as access to natural resources".
