The Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre
The Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre
Introduction
The UK's Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) was established in October 2004 with £5.5 million of funding from the Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC). Its mission is to position itself as a centre of expertise of international standing through which UK industry can access and influence academic research in the electronics manufacturing sector. Three years into its life the IeMRC is funding a wide and varied research portfolio with projects supporting work deemed to be of vital interest to the UK electronics manufacturing industry.
The research “Centre”
In 2001, EPSRC initiated its Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (IMRC)programme with the aim of encouraging collaboration between industry and academia, and facilitating knowledge transfer and exploitation of research results. While the majority of IMRCs are based at a single university with an exclusive membership, the IeMRC is unique in being a dispersed “centre”with its management hub only being based at Loughborough University. The IeMRC also has an executive management function which is shared between seven universities with representatives from Bath, Brunel, Greenwich, Lancaster,Loughborough, Nottingham and Strathclyde. The Centre is non- exclusive and offers membership to all UK academics through the award of research funds. The adoption of this structure allows the best groups from across the UK to bid against specific calls for proposals, rather than having a fixed consortium of partners at the outset. This ensures that the most appropriate groups have the ability to access research funds to support an industry that has become very diverse.
Industrial steering
A key element of the IeMRC is the level of industrial involvement, with a strong Industrial Steering Group (ISG) being used to inform the IeMRC's strategy and to prioritise the research agenda. Professor Martin Goosey is the Industrial Director of the IeMRC with responsibility for recruiting and refreshing the Steering Group membership and for leading the Centre's industrial interface. The ISG currently consists of members from companies such as Dynex Semiconductor,Celestica, MBDA, BAe Systems, Rolls Royce International Rectifier and many others. The ISG also has input from various non-industrial partners such as the former DTI and the trade association Intellect.
Research portfolio
The ISG along with inputs from the Knowledge Transfer Networks and from the DTIs Electronics Innovation Growth Team reports has evolved a portfolio of key areas that are deemed to be important for the future and rapidly evolving UK electronics industry. Consequently, the diverse nature of the UK's electronics manufacturing sector is able to be reflected in the breadth of research being funded by the IeMRC. A framework consisting of six key research themes covers a wide range of subject matter relating to electronics manufacturing in the UK, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1IeMRC research themes and related issues
Funding is allocated via a series of competitive calls for proposals. These enable a range of research activities to be supported from relatively small feasibility studies (some of which have developed into full focussed research projects) and PhD studentships through to much larger Flagship Projects that are multi-institutional. These larger projects usually also have a very strong industrial component and are able to tackle significant and strategic research priority areas.
Examples of research being funded that are pertinent to this publication include the research project on “Nanoparticle Stabilized Solder Materials for High Reliability Applications” that is currently being undertaken by Dr Samjid Mannan's team at Kings College, London. This project is focussed on addressing the need for increased reliability solder joints for the automotive,aerospace and oil and gas drilling industries, where the electronics are required to withstand elevated temperatures for extended periods. The dispersion of certain particle types in a solder to create a highly reliable solder joint is not a trivial task and it is a process which is being evaluated, quantified and modelled by the team. Initial work was carried out under an earlier IeMRC funded feasibility study that benefited from the relatively rapid access to funds in order to enable the scope of the potential of larger project to be assessed. It now has industrial input through the supply chain from solder manufacturers through to end-users including Henkel and the National Physical Laboratory.
Design Tools for the manufacture and implementation of lead-free solder joints are being investigated from a modelling perspective at Loughborough University by Cheng-Jiang Huang, Rachel Thomson and Paul Conway. Since, the European Commission banned the use of lead in 2006 in many electronic applications, new materials have been used for soldering. In many cases, these materials are not yet well enough understood and behave differently to their tin-lead predecessors both during manufacture and during their service lives. This research project aims to create an understanding of how these new materials behave by modelling the interactions between the solders and substrate materials. These interactions include the formation of interfacial compounds(intermetallics) that can help wetting but are often brittle and may ultimately result in the failure of the solder joint.
There are many other projects currently underway that are related to soldering and surface mount technology and it is anticipated that some of these will be featured in more detail in future issues.
Events
The IeMRC at present holds regular quarterly events, including an annual conference, all of which are offered free of charge to attendees. This year's conference held in September was the IeMRC's second and it delivered a full programme with presentations from NPL, the Electronics KTN and many of the research projects being funded by the IeMRC. The conference provided a forum for the IeMRC community and industry to share results and experiences while also being an excellent opportunity for networking. This year's event attracted sponsorship from the Electronics, Electronics Enabled Products and Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Networks. There will be a detailed review of the conference in the next issue of SSMT and copies of the presentations given at the conference can be found on the IeMRC's web site.
Earlier this year Loughborough University's Design Suite played host to the IeMRC's Eco-Design for Electronics Workshop. This one-day workshop was structured to give an introduction to the concepts and use of sustainable design and its influence on manufacturing and recycling practices pertinent to the needs of the electronics industry. Organised by the IeMRC, in collaboration with SUMEEPnet and supported by Envirowise, this free-of- charge event had a strong list of participants, representing a good cross section of the IeMRC, the broader academic community and industry.
In June, the IeMRC and Electronics Yorkshire held a joint seminar in Leeds on the subject of Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research. The objective of the seminar was to highlight the work being carried out by the IeMRC in universities around the country and to demonstrate its value to the UK electronics industry (Figure 2).
Figure 2Leeds Seminar Speakers (l-r): Avtar Matharu, Martin Goosey, Darren Southee, David Hutt, Andrew Richardson and Dave Williams
Examples of the wide range of work the IeMRC was supporting, from basic materials research, through manufacturing processes to broader business planning issues were highlighted. Examples discussed included projects being undertaken at Heriot Watt, Coventry and Bath Universities. These diverse projects highlighted the breadth of technical work being supported and he gave details of a frequency agile microwave bonding system, the sonochemical modification of surfaces and the cost estimation of low-volume long-life products in electronic defence systems.
Following the Annual Conference, a final seminar for 2007 will cover advanced electronics packaging. This event is provisionally scheduled for December and further details will be posted on the IeMRC web site in the near future.
Future of the centre
With the majority of research funding now in place, the Centre's focus is turning to the delivery of its commitment of being accessible to and supporting the UK electronics manufacturing sector. Further, community building events will be organised and these will include additional seminars and workshops The IeMRC will also form special interest working groups, information on which will be available through our web site.
The IeMRC will be going through its renewal procedure during Winter 2007/Spring 2008 and this will consist of a review of the Centre's research activities, conducted by a panel of international experts. The outcome of this review will determine the Centre's funding for 2009 onwards. With the high quality of research currently being undertaken, which the UK electronics industry is being engaged with and exposed to, the Centre is confident of being able to continue to offer valuable support to the UK's manufacturing base.
For further information on the research projects being funded by the IeMRC and its events, please go to the IeMRC's web site: www.IeMRC.org
Dr Darren CadmanIeMRC CoordinatorSeptember 2007.
