Focus Center, New York: Rensselaer - Detailed Overview

The Focus Center - New York (FC-NY) is a strategic partnership between leading research organizations in New York State, the New York State government, and the microelectronics, optoelectronics, bioelectronics, and telecommunication industries in the U.S. Its aim is to act as a fully integrated, long-term, visionary research and development (R&D) resource for the creation of the science and technology base for future generations of integrated circuitry (IC) products. Its targeted portfolio of high tech products ranges from the more "traditional" microprocessor and memory type computer chips to the emerging areas of biochips, micro- and nano-systems, and ultra-high frequency communication devices and associated equipment.

FC-NY is a founding member and one of the three primary sites of the recently created national consortium known as the Interconnect Focus Center (IFC).The semiconductor industry has designated this consortium as the centerpiece in its strategic plan for long-term technology development and deployment. By tapping into the wealth of creative concepts and scientific know how that exist at the leading research universities in the U.S., the IFC will address and resolve the critical technological challenges that face the semiconductor industry in the 21st century. From this perspective, the IFC is a new paradigm in semiconductor science and technology development and implementation. The influential presence that FC-NY enjoys within the IFC allows it to exploit a vast array of intellectual, technical, political and financial resources at the national and international levels to place New York in a uniquely favorable position in its quest to attract and retain high tech industry.

Within the academic community, FC-NY was established as an equal partnership between the two prime research institutions in microelectronics in New York, namely, the University at Albany-SUNY (UAlbany) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), with headquarters at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM) at UAlbany. Participation by other NYS research institutions is encouraged on a project-by-project basis, as mandated by scientific and technical needs, and recommended by appropriate academic and industrial advisory boards. The driving strategy of FC-NY in its first three years of existence is to build the critical mass required and assemble the scientific and technical capabilities needed to establish FC-NY as the preeminent R&D center in the U.S. for microelectronics, optoelectronics, bioelectronics, and telecommunication technologies. The achievement of this goal is critical to the establishment of an intellectual power base and state-of-the-art infrastructure within FC-NY to serve as a new paradigm for high tech research and development that would replace the now antiquated model of industrially-based R&D laboratories.

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