CERN Microvia Technology

Keywords Microvias, Conferences, Electronics industry

CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, presented a new, low-cost technique for microvia production at a workshop at Intellect s Russell Square offices on 21 January 2004.

Nathan Hill, who has responsibility for coordinating technology transfer for CERN in the UK, began with an overview of the structure and objectives of the CERN organisation, founded 50 years back and based in Geneva, with a one-billion Swiss Franc annual budget funded by 20 member states including the UK.

CERN s principal activity is the fundamental investigation of sub-atomic particles, with the world s largest particle physics laboratory. Big physics presents big engineering challenges not everyone can afford their own particle accelerator! and its most significant current project is the construction of an underground accelerator 27 km in circumference, with four detectors each the size of an apartment block. When in continuous operation these will collect, record and analyse the equivalent of 3 million CD-ROMs-worth of data per second. Nathan remarked that an enormous commercial opportunity exists for the European electronics industry to supply processing and storage capacity to equip the system, the majority of the requirement being projected for the period 2006-2010.

The UK s contribution to CERN is funded by the strategic science investment agency PPARC, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, amongst whose objectives are the encouragement of multidisciplinary research and the dissemination of technologies to broader market areas. Technology transfer forms an integral part...