IMEC in strategic collaboration with Renesas

Renesas Technology Corporation of the US says it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with IMEC, the independent nanoelectronics research centre based in Leuven, Belgium.

The research is targeted on 45 nanometre RF (radio frequency) transceivers targeting Gbit/sec cognitive radios, which intelligently work out which frequency to tune themselves to, and involves Renesas joining IMEC’s software-defined radio (SFR) front-end programme. The programme includes reconfigurable RF solutions, high-speed/low-power analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) and new approaches to digitise future RF architectures.

“We are excited that one of the world’s leading semiconductor companies has joined our SDR-front-end programme. This proves the importance of our recent results on SDR and ADCs, and reflects the value IMEC brings to its industry partners in this RF research programme,” said Rudy Lauwereins, Vice President Nomadic Embedded Systems at IMEC. “We are looking forward to a close cooperation with the Renesas research team, to develop together our upcoming generation of breakthrough RF designs.”

IMEC’s staff of more than 1,600 includes more than 500 industrial residents and guest researchers. Its research aims to bridge the gap between fundamental research at universities and technology development in industry.