M6 · Micro- Multi-Material Manufacture to Enable Multifunctional Miniaturised Devices

Micro- Multi-Material Manufacture to Enable Multifunctional Miniaturised Devices

For some decades the world has observed the ultimate impact of device miniaturisation that has led to a dramatic growth in national and global revenues alongside enormous benefits brought to human activities, in healthcare/medical, energy, space, transport, communication and defence sectors. Evolving initially from silicon-based manufacturing technologies thanks to the huge investment and established infrastructure, the current state-of-the-art is characterised by moving further according to the “More than Moore” and has substantially extended the global capacity in achieving complex microsystem integration using hybrid processes, multi-materials that are confined in an ever smaller space or dimensions. The challenges in the endeavour of continuous miniaturisation therefore exist in the fundamental understanding of underpinning phenomena behind all the play, in order to support a paradigm of future-generation miniaturised device. With significant development for some decades, various capabilities of, and expertise bridging, the EU and Asia are now available to readily forge a tangible strong consortium targeting such an important field. Given its inter-disciplinary nature, the project will cover a wide breadth of research topics as demanded through collaborations and researchers’ mobility provided by International Research Staff Exchange Scheme as one of the Marie Curie Actions to draw the strength from the participating institutions in Germany, Japan, China and UK. The project has been focusing on the potential challenges and issues encountered in the integration of miniaturised devices in terms of novel materials and processes, characterisation and testing, demonstrating the manufacturability and reliability. Both experimental and computational approaches will be applied to elaborate the fundamental aspects of multi-material behaviour at micro- and nano-scales. The project has progressed as it has been planned with numerous research secondments scheduled and completed, and many are currently palnning. Through such international partnership, M6 has achieved: i) to forge an international research collaborative platform that can ultimately facilitate various activities to underpin future-generation miniaturised devices; ii) to undertake extensive research collaboration between the project partners in delivery of high-quality research outputs; iii) to endeavour a joint effort by bridging EU and Asia in the transfer of knowledge and technology by implementing complementary investigations through the exchange of researchers with specific expertise and related staff within a global research context; iv) to provide various activities, e.g. workshops, conferences, that may attract attention of many excellent researchers worldwide to promote future sustainable developments; v) to generate high-quality publications through fundamental research collaborations and results-sharing from the collaborative activities; vi) to provide joint postgraduate training programmes between the partners that will lead to feasible procedures for forthcoming joint research degrees. The exchange of researchers has instrumentally played a vital part in this collaborative research activity, which has focused on the fundamental understanding of the selected manufacturing methodologies for the integration of multi-functional miniaturised devices.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union