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LEUVEN,
Belgium--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 2005--IMEC, Europe's
leading independent nanoelectronics and nanotechnology
research institute, has announced that Samsung Electronics
Co. LTD., the world's leading information and communications
technologies (ICT) company, has become the first long-term
strategic partner within IMEC's M4 (Multi-Mode Multi-Media)
research program, which focuses on the mobile terminal
for the future ubiquitous network era. Under this
agreement, Samsung and IMEC intend to develop key
technologies for its future portable communication
products.
Future generation mobile terminals will start to incorporate
ubiquitous network functionality by efficiently dealing
with a multitude of communication modes and various
multimedia applications. Further down the road, these
terminals will also need adaptive behavior to intelligently
manage the computational resources that will be distributed
and shared across the environing systems. IMEC's M4
integrated research platform aims to resolve the fundamental
technological issues for future mobile terminals,
allowing the true ubiquitous network environment to
become a reality.
Complexity, cost,
power consumption, high throughput at low latency,
and flexibility are the five primary hurdles in developing
a mobile terminal. To overcome these hurdles, IMEC
and Samsung have outlined a number of domains of innovation,
which are targeted by the M4 technology programs.
M4 strategic program
partners join the full frame of technology programs
and closely collaborate with IMEC's cross-disciplinary
team of more than 100 researchers. The M4 roadmap
is fine-tuned with the strategic partners, ensuring
that research targets are strongly tuned to industrial
applications, which is a major advantage for the strategic
partners. In addition, the integrated approach guarantees
the compatibility of the different technology solutions,
and enables efficient transfer of the research results
into industrial applications.
In addition to Samsung's
strategic partnership with IMEC, IMEC also has a running
relationship with several technology partners including
Freescale, Infineon and Xilinx, collaborating within
one of the M4 technology programs. The highest level
of collaboration is at the M4 program level, followed
by collaboration on technology level (collaboration
on one or more of the subordinate technologies of
M4). Both the strategic and the technology partners
gain benefits from IMEC's business model, which allows
companies to reduce research costs and risks while
sharing intellectual property. By working cross-industry
with a wide range of partners within the M4 program
context, IMEC will ensure creation and continuity
of a challenging M4 program research roadmap to address
the key challenges within the mobile multimedia area.
"We believe IMEC's
outstanding research capability would match Samsung's
need well. Through this strategic partnership, both
Samsung and IMEC can achieve mutual benefit in preparing
for the future," said Dr. Joonki Kim, Head of
Digital Research Center of Samsung Advanced Institute
of Technology.
"We are very
pleased that our successful relationship with Samsung,
which started in 2003 with Samsung joining our core
sub-45nm CMOS research platform, has now resulted
in this M4 strategic partnership," said Prof.
Gilbert Declerck, President and CEO of IMEC. "Such
long-term collaborations with industry leaders prove
the industrial relevance of our research programs."
Note to editors:
About IMEC
IMEC is a world-leading
independent research center in nanoelectronics and
nanotechnology. Its research focuses on the next generations
of chips and systems, and on the enabling technologies
for ambient intelligence. IMEC's research bridges
the gap between fundamental research at universities
and technology development in industry. Its unique
balance of processing and system know-how, intellectual
property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure
and its strong network of companies, universities
and research institutes worldwide, position IMEC as
a key partner with which to develop and improve technologies
for future systems.
IMEC is headquartered
in Leuven, Belgium and has representatives in the
US, China and Japan. Its staff of more than 1300 people
includes over 380 industrial residents and guest researchers.
In 2003, its revenues were EUR 145 million. Further
information on IMEC can be found at www.imec.be.
About Samsung Electronics
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
Co. LTD. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication,
and digital convergence technology. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
employs approximately 64,000 people in 89 offices
in 47 countries. Being the largest producer of memory
chips, smart card chips, display driver ICs, TFT-LCDs,
CDMA mobile phones, monitor and VCR's, SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
consists of four main business units: Digital Media
Network, Device Solution Network, Telecommunications
Network, and Digital Appliance Network Businesses.
For more information, please visit the web site, http://samsungelectronics.com.
Contacts
IMEC
Katrien Marent, +32 16 28 18 80
Katrien.Marent@imec.be
or
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology
Manjo Han, 82-31-280-9082
manjh@samsung.com
Eunie Dong, 82-31-280-9035
ke.dong@samsung.com
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