[ExI] EU throws €5.5bn at embedded chips and nanotech

[Stefano Vaj]

EU throws €5.5bn at embedded chips and nanotechAnoints tech industry with
fat wad of cashBy Kelly
Fiveash<http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2008/02/26/eu_joint_technology_initiatives/>
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More by this author<http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Kelly%20Fiveash>

The European Union is to pump billions of euros into a number of key
technology projects to bolster Europe's nanotech and embedded systems
industries over the next decade.

The European Commission (EC) is coughing up a staggering €2.5bn in
industrial research in embedded
microcomputers<http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/283&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en>.
The joint technology initiative, dubbed ARTEMIS, was given the green light
by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers at the end of last
year.

EU Information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding described the
public and private R&D investment in embedded systems, used in the likes of
credit cards, mobile phones and cars, as a "very worthwhile" project. She
claims the ten-year initiative will help push European development in the
field of microcomputers to the forefront.

The EC said that over four billion embedded processors were sold in the
global market last year, worth €60bn. It predicts annual growth rates of 14
per cent for the technology.

Public funding will be pooled with universities and industry under an
ARTEMIS open consortium to provide industry-led pan-European research and
development.

Private firms including Airbus, Ericsson AB, Nokia Corporation and ST
Microelectronics currently sit on the Artemis board, and will, apparently,
be balanced by public stakeholders.

The EU's investment in
nanoelectronics<http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/284&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en>will
be even bigger.

The EC – which estimates an eight to ten per cent growth rate in the
semiconductor industry over the coming years – said it would stump up a
massive €3bn on R&D in miniature electronic devices over the next ten years
under a joint private-public initiative called ENIAC.

Reding said: "The possibilities offered by nanoelectronics are only limited
by our imagination. They underpin all aspects of everyday devices and so
concern everyone in Europe." She added that the huge investment was "a
concrete way to ensure that such a key industrial sector continues its
strong economic growth, right here in Europe".

In May last year the EU explained the rationale behind its decision to
provide the tech industry with funding through a mixture of private and
public investment.

It said in a statement<http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/191>:
"The rapid pace of technological change, the rising costs of research, the
increasing complexity and interdependence of technologies, and the potential
economies of scale to be gained by cooperation across Europe are all strong
reasons for setting up long-term public-private partnerships."

Presumably, the industry – in the EU at least – will broadly welcome the
EU's decision to sink such huge sums of cash into important sectors of the
technology market. How non-EU companies and governments will view the
funding plans is a different matter.

The EC has also announced plans to stick its beak into creating a
peer-to-peer system that can pipe programmes to set-top boxes and home
televisions, which is likely to be met with a collective shrug of the
shoulders from the industry.

The EU will spend €19m over the next four years on P2P
Next<http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.document&N_RCN=29153>,
which is built on Tribler technology and is currently under development at
Delft University of Technology.

EC officials hope that, in partnership with the likes of the Beeb and the
European Broadcasting Union, a standard way of sending TV via the internet
can be set up.

But it's a small-fry, arguably short-sighted project compared to the EU's
grand-scale nanotech and microcomputers investments. And it's an initiative
which fails to address the fact that the market-led IPTV standard is already
a reality, and an area that European ISPs such as BT Vision and Tiscali are
continuing to spend and focus heavily on. (R)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/26/eu_joint_technology_initiatives/
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