Grenoble, France, March 28, 2015: CEA-Leti, coordinator of the pan-European consortium ‘EuroCPS’ has announced that the latter’s 15 partners had decided to join forces to establish a network of design centers to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and large companies develop innovative products for the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) market. For this, and to encourage innovation, the group will use cyber-physical system (CPS) platforms and work in tandem with research technology organisations (RTOs) (or technology transfer-oriented university institutes). CPS means the integration of computation, networking, and physical processes.
Funded by the European Commission (EU), the three-year, €9.2 million project was designed to help innovators overcome barriers they faced when entering new markets because of lack of knowledge of the value chain and the skills to master the entire design process from ideas to products.
The French company Leti provides the link between basic research and production of micro- and nanotechnologies that are likely to improve the lives of people. It already owns 2,200 different patents, and is in partnership with large industries, SMEs and startups to tailor advanced solutions. Leti has also launched over 50 startups.
CEA-Leti told The Internet Of All Things in a written statement that to that end, EuroCPS partners would provide the technical expertise, coaching and even access to advanced industrial CPS platforms to get innovators up to speed on the innovation ecosystem of “smart” products. Among the other things it would also do is to offer all the necessary expertise and competencies to provide innovators from any sector with a smooth path to building innovative CPS-enabled systems. It also will tap existing regional ecosystems in several countries to bring the full value chain – from hardware/software platforms to cyber-physical systems – to high value-added products and services.
“EuroCPS will create synergies between emerging and established organisations operating in the CPS sector,” explained Marie-Noëlle Semeria, Chief Executive Officer of Leti. “From that foundation, it will leverage the existing ecosystem to bring the full value chain from micro-electronics, smart systems and CPS to high value-added products and services. This combination will centralise in one project all the necessary expertise and competencies to provide SMEs from any sector with a one-stop-shop opportunity to build innovative CPS-enabled systems.”
EuroCPS was part of the Smart-Anything-Everywhere Initiative under the ‘Horizon 2020 Leadership in Enabling Industrial Technologies’ which aims to generate new and breakthrough technologies, boost competitiveness, create jobs and support growth by offering a European-wide network of design centers. A first group of four innovation actions would combine efforts under the 25M€ funding budget to support around 100 industrial experiments with the aim of involving more than 200 SMEs and midcaps in the field of CPS, IoT and smart systems integration (SSI).
One key goal of the project was to link software, system and nano-electronic industries along the full CPS value chain to demonstrate a new cooperation model. This would be demonstrated by 30 novel industrial experiments funded through three open calls for developing innovative CPS products that will help increase the competitiveness of the European innovative companies. The targeted products would be designed, constructed and built on the EuroCPS Platforms:
· Avionics platform provided by Thales
· Connectivity platform provided by Schneider
· INEMO platform provided by STMicroelectronics
· Integrated and open platform provided by AVL
· Power management platform provided by Infineon
· Quark platform provided by Intel
· Silicon processes and package technology platform provided by STMicroelectronics
· STM32F platform provided by STMicroelectronics
EuroCPS members are major European system suppliers, world-class research centers and technology providers, all rooted in the top European regional ecosystems. The idea behind EuroCPS is to significantly reduce development time and certification efforts, thus putting Europe at the cutting edge of CPS development and implementation. It will do this through pan-European collaboration and knowledge exchange and access to the strong value chain in the strategic sector.
EuroCPS Project members include:
· CEA-Leti, coordinator (France)
· CEA-List (France)
· STMicroelectronics Grenoble 2 SAS (France)
· Thales SA (France)
· AVL LIST GmbH (Austria)
· Infineon Technologies Austria AG (Austria)
· Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung E.V. (Germany
· The Digital Catapult (UK)
· Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna (Italy)
· Lulea Tekniska Universitet (Lithuania)
· Budapesti Muszaki es Gazdasagtudomanyi Egyetem (Hungary)
· Intel Shannon Limited (Ireland)
· Schneider Electric Industries SAS (France)
· Vereniging High Tech NL (The Netherlands)
· Finepower GmbH (Germany)
· STMicroelectronics SRL (Italy)
Image Credit: EuroCPS
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