UCC's Tyndall institute has won an award for promoting interaction between universities and industry in the field of microchip design. The Irish team, led by Professor Peter Kennedy, Vice-President for Research, UCC and Tyndall National Institute, UCC received the Outstanding Chapter of the Year Award from the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society, the world's largest professional association, at a conference in Chicago.

"When we first started to promote microchip design in a concerted way in Ireland ten years ago, our external advisor told us that `it takes ten years to become good at anything.' Ten years later, our model for interaction with industry has been recognized as the best in the world, and we're now being asked to show others how it's done. That's a great achievement for us," says Professor Kennedy.

The ingredients of the Chapter's success have been its focus on excellence and listening to its customer base. Ireland has a strong core of circuit design companies - including Analog Devices, Cypress Semiconductor, Intel, M4S, Powervation, Silicon and Software Systems, Synopsys, Texas Instruments, and Xilinx - most of which have design centres in the Munster region.

The Chapter's winning formula is based on a series of technical presentations by accomplished industrialists, visiting professors, and doctoral students, and workshops showcasing cutting-edge research in the universities.

"Industry and academia sit together in Cork to develop solutions to some of the most challenging research problems in microelectronics," says Professor Kennedy. "In our field, you have to be best in the world to survive. It keeps us on our toes!"

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