IMEC

Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC; officially stylised as imec) is an international research & development organization, active in the fields of nanoelectronics and digital technologies with headquarters in Leuven, Belgium. Luc Van den hove has served as president and CEO since 2009.[1]

IMEC has more than 5,500 employees and researchers for advanced semiconductor R&D activities, also including system scaling, silicon photonics, artificial intelligence, beyond 5G communications and sensing technologies. In 2022, IMEC's revenue (P&L) totaled 846 million euro.[2]

Overview

IMEC employs more than 5,500 researchers from more than 90 countries; it has numerous facilities dedicated to research and development around the world, including 12,000 square meters of cleanroom capacity for semiconductor processing.[3] The IMEC headquarters are located in Leuven.

History

Smart health

revenue	846 million Euro (2022)

num employees	>5,000

homepage	www.imec-int.com

location country	Belgium

Neuropixels technology

The performance of the Neuropixels probes and their potential for transformational neuroscience experiments was described in a November 9, 2017 paper published in Nature.[28] In 2019, The New York Times reported that IMEC's Neuropixels technology is widely recognized as the most advanced method of gathering data from brain cells.[29]

Brain-On-Chip research

In 2018, IMEC announced the creation of a research venture together with KU Leuven, UZ Leuven and VIB, called Mission Lucidity. The venture’s aim is to decode dementia.[30][31] IMEC is creating human-specific living brain models, so called 'brains-on-chips’ which automate and miniaturize human stem cell manipulations, and developing technology to generate programmable, instrumented 3D brain models with single-cell precision.[32] The project was supported by a Collaborative Science Award of one million dollars by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.[31]

Point of care blood test devices (Johns Hopkins University & miDiagnostics)

Peter Peumans, in charge of IMEC's life science technologies program, helped found miDiagnostics and was appointed CTO. In 2019, NASA awarded funding to miDiagnostics to test a technology for monitoring astronauts’ health status under zero gravity conditions, with the aim of advancing space health diagnostics.[33]

Wearables

IMEC develops wearable devices.[34] Its technologies have gained several approvals by regulatory agencies such as the FDA and PMDA and have made contributions to at least one published study.[35]

Through its spinoff Bloomlife, IMEC develops pregnancy monitoring technology that tracks fetal health and fetal mobility, with the aim of giving pregnant women and their doctors better access to key details about fetal development.[36]

Other applications include ingestible gut sensors designed to capture mechanical, electrical, and chemical changes that occur during digestion, flagging abnormalities and problems while also delivering personalized nutrition advice.[37]

Breathalyzer

In 2020, IMEC started a large research project on the development of a breathalyzer to detect COVID-19 in exhaled breath. The basic idea was to use a silicon-based sieve to catch extremely small exhaled air particles from the deep lungs and by doing so, already detect the virus in an early stage of the infection.[38]

services
type	Nonprofit company
industry	Nanoelectronics, digital technologies
genre	Independent research center
foundation	1984
founder	Roger Van Overstraeten
location city	Leuven
locations	Belgium (5), Netherlands (3), United States (6), Taiwan (1), Japan (1), United Kingdom (1), Germany (1), Spain (1), Italy (1) and India (1)
key people	Luc Van den hove (President and CEO)

Overview

History

Advanced semiconductor scaling

Energy

Artificial intelligence

Smart cities

Image sensors and vision systems

Smart health

Neuropixels technology

Brain-On-Chip research

Point of care blood test devices (Johns Hopkins University & miDiagnostics)

Wearables

Breathalyzer

Neuropixels technology

Brain-On-Chip research

Point of care blood test devices (Johns Hopkins University & miDiagnostics)

Wearables

Breathalyzer

IMEC Malaga

External links

References