CMC unveils national strategy to broaden economic impact of microsystems R&D

Seeking $500 million over five years

Canada’s foremost facilitator of microelectronics and microsystems R&D says it’s time to crank up spending and endorse a national strategy to ensure that the country gets its fair share of existing and emerging commercial opportunities. The Canadian Microelectronics Corp (CMC) is requesting $500 million from various sources to enact a multifaceted national strategy of infrastructure, networking and training between 2005 and 2010.

CMC contends that its new strategic plan and significantly increased levels of funding are essential for Canada to participate in the increasing pervasiveness of microelectronics and microsystems in the health, automotive aerospace, energy, security and environmental sectors, as well as in their traditional base in the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector. Failure to act would leave Canada “in danger of being marginalized”, CMC contends.

“This is an important issue that gets to matters that relate to the way in which Canada develops science policy and strategic national initiatives,” says CMC president and CEO Dr Brian Barge. “Canada needs to be an effective competitor in areas that are broader than commodity-based resources. We need to maintain these and develop other sectors like aerospace, ICT, health care and automotive.”

The release of the new strategic plan — Accelerating Canadian Competitiveness through Microsystems — builds upon an intensive communications campaign to position the Kingston ON-based CMC as an enabling fourth pillar organization. Fourth pillar organizations act as bridges and a catalyst for R&D, technology development and innovation resident in industry government and universities and colleges. In addition to CMC, other examples of fourth pillar organizations are Precarn Inc and CANARIE Inc. All are seeking new funding arrangements.

For CMC, key funding approvals are being sought from Industry Canada and its historical funding partner, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). A proposal to the latter has been made and a response is expected this November. Negotiations to develop a proposal for Industry Canada are ongoing as are discussions with provincial governments, provincial economic agencies and the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. If successful, up to $180 million will be assembled to facilitate CMC’s greater involvement in pre-competitive R&D.

“Money will be directed to pre-competitive microsystems development intended to assess the commercial potential of prototype development,” says Barge. “Also, we will make available and leverage CMC capacities to make them available to the private sector. We’re broadening the base (and) attacking the very heart of the commercialization problem from our perspective. This is risk mitigation in the space between universities and industry where the risk is too high for the private sector.”

CMC’s pitch for new and enhanced funding coincides with the demise or review of several related research networking initiatives. Within the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program, the Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research folded in 2002 and it will be followed at the end of the current fiscal year by Micronet (Microelectronic Devices, Circuits & Systems) (R$, April 26/04).

Both were unable to secure funding to continue even for modest networking and R&D activities. In addition, the Laval Univ-based Canadian Institute for Photonics Innovation is one of several NCEs facing a mid-term review this year. Mid-term reviews are thorough and stringent. Terminating an NCE before it has received the maximum 14 year of funding is not unprecedented.

Barge says the CMC is ideally positioned to pick up the slack left by the sunsetting NCEs with its proposed network initiatives.

“Investment in a microsystems strategy is compromised because there’s no national initiative,” he says. “There needs to be multidisciplinary initiatives and the formation of teams to do this work. Projects are still being identified.”

CMC is also a key partner in a proposed NCE that has been shortlisted in the current competition. Tentatively entitled Microsystems and Nanosystems Network for Health Care and the Environment: Microsystems Interfaces Canada, the proposed NCE is being spearheaded by the Univ of Alberta’s Dr Linda Pilarski and focuses on the convergence of microsystems and microfluidics. A decision is expected this summer

Barge stresses that the CMC plan is critical in building strength in areas where Canada can be competitive. In order to determine those strengths, extensive consultations were undertaken with hundreds of stakeholders. Both stakeholders and CMC’s board of directors concluded that — with convergence between disciplines and sectors accelerating rapidly — the organization needed to think more broadly and take a leadership role.

“We’re taking a facilitator/catalyst role and operating in the brokering space between other pillars,” says Barge. “It’s critically important to note that we are operating in an international environment. To be effective, our Canadian national initiative needs to ensure that we have the channels to get prototypes built.”

The CMC strategic plan has been developed in close consultation with officials at Industry Canada and was officially released last week. Its timing it intended to coincide with the run-up to the next federal Budget, anticipated early in 2005. Sources of funding for the proposed national networking and infrastructure initiatives have not yet been identified. The Budget could commit to $70 million to CMC’s pre-competitive R&D proposal through Industry Canada.

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