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Building the Community |
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Newsletter April 2006 |
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NMI Networks and Partner Events |
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Manufacturing News |
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Industry Related Events of Special Interest |
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European Projects |
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Speakers Wanted! |
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Opportunities in Japan |
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Welcome |
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Training & Education |
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Welcome to the April edition of NMI’s newsletter. There’s a great deal going on in micro-electronics land over the coming months and we’ve highlighted some key dates for your diary as well as some updates on recent activities. |
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We’ve got a busy calendar of events lined up for you and your colleagues right across the board. Remember—NMI events are free to attend for members and many of our co-promoted events have negotiated discounts for members too. Immediately on the radar we have: Apr 28th *Failure Analysis, Characterisation & Reliability, Cambridge May 12th *Silicon Dream Team, Bath June 7th Foundry Equipment and Purchasing Forum, Edinburgh June 7/8 Semiconductor 2K: The Future of the European Semiconductor Industry, Edinburgh June 9th *Analogue and Mixed Signal Network, Southampton June 27th *Wafer Level Packaging, Cambridge
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May 15th—17th Technology World 06 London, Cambridge, Manchester Here’s an opportunity to meet with technology purchasers from around the world—here in the UK. June 13th EDA Tech Forum, Wantage In safe hands… Meet Gordon Banks Our very own David Burrows will be making an industry address on behalf of NMI at this electronics event. |
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Are you an SME interested in European Projects? We can help—the EPISTEP project has been devised to help small and medium sized enterprises raise their profiles in Europe and engage with the Framework Programme. |
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The CEESI programme offers a range of short courses for professional development or post graduate qualifications up to MSc including: Digital Design, Software, Processors, DSP, Analogue Design, Signal Integrity, Communications, Manufacturing & Test This is an EPSRC sponsored programme and bursaries are available to European students—don’t delay, apply now! |
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Mobile and Wireless Trade Mission to Japan If you’re looking at Japan as a region to export your mobile or communications related technology to, this sponsored trade mission could be a useful entry vehicle for you and help you make the right contacts. |
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To remove your name from our mailing list, please click here. E-mail us at info@nmi.org.uk or call (01506) 424890 |
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We’ve had a great start to the year with meetings of specialist groups including Plant Managers, Production, Equipment and Training Managers. It is encouraging to report that the spirit of collaboration is strong in each of these groups and participants are working together to identify best practice and improve the efficiency of member sites. We have also instigated a new forum where staff at smaller fabs can meet to collaborate in a similar fashion with the first meeting to be held in May. Contact us if you’re interested in NMI manufacturing activities. Virtual Stockroom: Reducing costs, inventories and down time We reported on spares trading in the last issue and after a period of testing with the pilot group we are now ready to roll out this service to more users. Judging by the feedback we received at Semicon Europa we believe this will be a very useful service to the industry. Interested parties can find out more here. NMI wins Carbon Trust Funding to improve clean room Energy Efficiency: NMI has been awarded a contract from The Carbon Trust to deliver energy efficiency improvements in semiconductor manufacturing plants. We will be working with IDC as the main sub-contractor to deliver a targeted 15% improvement focussed on air handling and associated sub-systems. Derek Boyd commented “recent increases in the price of energy mandate the need to be more efficient than ever with our resources. This programme will help us achieve that”. Electricity Prices - NMI Leads industry delegation to the DTI / Seeks to develop new long-term supplier partnership model NMI called a meeting with energy users to put the case directly to the DTI on the impact that electricity pricing is having on semiconductor manufacturing. Whilst sympathetic, there was no encouraging news from the DTI about the potential for near-term support or price-reductions and as a result NMI will be writing to the Energy Minister requesting urgent action. We’re also pursuing a novel agreement with a leading electricity supplier that will result in an improved pricing structure and we will report our progress in the coming weeks. Insight Leadership Development Programme Update Leadership and management development is a key requirement for the industry and this programme is specifically developed to suit the semiconductor environment providing training for people moving from technical to managerial roles. The course has been revamped in readiness for more students and we can now offer an introduction to the Diploma representing about ¼ of the learning hours while providing credits towards the full Diploma as an option for students. IGDS MSc Programme Update Although the current IGDS programme will expire this year, a shorter, more flexible programme based on the original material is being developed to meet the requests of members –we’ll report more over the coming months. |
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We’re currently planning the following events and would like to hear from organisations that would like the opportunity of speaking |
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*We’d like to thank our sponsors and partners in support of these events |