Electronics Production |
MEDEA+ Project wins award
A MEDEA+ project on mobile multimedia, led by STMicroelectronics, has won the annual award for European collaborative innovation in Microelectronics, the 'Jean-Pierre Noblanc Award for Excellence.'
Selected from around 15 eligible MEDEA+ Application and Technology projects, the Pocket Multimedia (A207) project led by Max Tournier from ST's Imaging Division was announced as this year's winner during the annual MEDEA+ Forum in Barcelona, Spain, on November 21-22. The selection criteria for the Award included the innovation level of the results; exploitation potential; anticipated market impacts, notably on the European economy; quality and efficiency of the project; co-operation and management; and effectiveness of resource spending.
The winning project ran for four years from 2001 to 2004 with the aim of creating a common development environment for low-power, highly portable multimedia applications. The work involved the complex co-operation between four industrial leaders and a major research institute from four European countries: ARMINES-CMM, Cambridge Display Technologies, Philips, STMicroelectronics, and Thomson.
Combining a software computing approach with dedicated hardware modules, the innovative platform developed within the Pocket Multimedia project mainly targets image and video processing applications, while including state-of-the art solutions for emerging display technologies, such as OLED, and advanced audio algorithms.
“We are very proud to have participated in this successful MEDEA+ project. This is the second year in a row that the winning project has been led by ST. This award is the recognition of an unswerving commitment to innovation and the outstanding R&D capabilities of all the project partners,” said project leader Max Tournier, STMicroelectronics. “ST has always highly valued cooperation, and the success of this MEDEA+ project adds to our outstanding track record of collaboration with a wide range of participants from the industrial and academic world.”
The Jean-Pierre Noblanc Award was established by MEDEA+, the pan-European Program for advanced cooperative Research and Development in Microelectronics, to commemorate its late Chairman and recognize significant contributions to the European microelectronics industry.
The objective of the industry-driven multi-project MEDEA+ program is to stimulate innovation and provide the technology platform which will allow the European microelectronics industry to stay in the group of worldwide leaders.