Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD)

The central partner for business and science, politics and society

 

Since 2017, Fraunhofer IIS, together with another ten institutes of the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics and the two institutes FBH and IHP of the Leibniz Association, has formed the cross-site Research Fab Microelectronics Germany.

For the first time, 13 institutes from the two research organizations, Fraunhofer and Leibniz, are combining their expertise under one virtual umbrella, thus creating a new quality to the research and development of micro- and nanosystems. With more than 2,000 scientists, the FMD is one the world's largest R&D network of its kind. With its unique diversity of expertise and infrastructure at the institutes, it is helping Germany and Europe to further expand their leading position in research and development.

Transition to regular operation

Until the end of 2020, the FMD was in its start-up phase. The extensive investments of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the modernization of the institute´s infrastructure could be completed by the end of 2020 / beginning of 2021, with the exception of a few minor delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the beginning of 2021, FMD started steady operations with the merger of the two offices of the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics and Forschungsfabrik Mikroelektronik Deutschland (FMD) and the new head of the joint office, Dr. Stephan Guttowski. This transition was marked by the digital conference "Impulsgeber FMD: Angebot & Potenzial – Köpfe & Know-how" on April 22, 2021. This model of interdisciplinary and interorganizational cooperation in the German research landscape is already bearing its first fruits and it may serve as a role model at the European level in the future.

Networking and cooperation for technological sovereignty

In the meantime, the FMD is considered a role model when it comes to setting up the competencies of different R&D institutions with a joint strategy and a bundled offer to industry. With its cross-location, cross-technology and cross-competence collaboration, FMD ensures that technological sovereignty is maintained and expanded along the entire value chain.

The Berlin office represents the FMD institutes and acts as a central point of contact for all issues related to micro- and nanoelectronic research and development in Germany and Europe.

Versatile cooperation opportunities

In addition to the range of services for its customers from industry, FMD also offers a wide variety of cooperation opportunities for its partners in science and education. These are aimed directly at cooperative processing of research questions, such as collaborative work in joint projects and the operation of joint laboratories. A major opportunity for cooperation lies in the testing of special concepts and solutions from basic research on the facilities of the FMD institutes to gain a better understanding of their suitability in more application-oriented environments.

Trustworthy and sustainable microelectronics systems for innovative strength

A future-oriented society depends on electronic components in all relevant technical application domains - whether in critical infrastructures, in Industry 4.0, in the automotive sector or even in medical devices. People must be able to rely on these in order to build trustworthy products, systems and infrastructure with them.

The cross-technology competencies needed to meet these challenges are being developed by the institutes of Forschungsfabrik Mikroelektronik Deutschland (FMD) in large-scale projects such as "TRAICT" or "Velektronik". In the TRAICT (TrustedResourceAware ICT) project, for example, eight FMD institutes worked together with another ten Fraunhofer institutes until the end of 2021 to develop framework conditions to ensure that information and communication technology is trustworthy and compliant with data protection requirements, and can be used in a self-determined and secure manner.

In order to shed light on the entire value chain and create end-to-end concepts for trustworthy electronics in Germany and Europe, a platform for trustworthy electronics - "Velektronik" for short - was launched in March 2021. A total of 12 partners are involved - 11 institutes of the FMD as well as the edacentrum. Within the project, corresponding standards, norms and processes based on a national and European chip security architecture are to be developed and brought into application.