Governance
The structure and the organisation of the CMi is regulated by the Regulations concerning the organisation of EPFL Core Facilities. The strategic development of the CMi is guided by its steering committe.
EPFL and its partners
At the forefront of education and technological research, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) is well known outside the borders of Switzerland. EPFL’s mission is centered around three areas:
- education
- research
- technology transfer to industry
while maintaining an atmosphere of international collaboration. Taking advantage of the many international contacts that EPFL has, the CMi has established links with other centers around the World to exchange information and experiences in the domain of microtechnology.
Microtechnologies
Product miniaturization and development of sound manufacturing processes are major goals of microtechnology research. The availability of a clean room is mandatory for the implementation of the above tasks. Presently, researchers in physics, chemistry, electronics and materials science at EPFL are interested in performing their experimental work in such an environment. Thus, the research at CMi follows the main points described below:
- Fundamental research: micro- and nano-structures for research in physics. Micro-electrodes for chemistry and biology. Microstructures for the characterization of new materials
- Manufacturing processes: new manufacturing processes in silicon and other materials. Integration and encapsulation techniques for microsystems. New processes for microelectronics. Silicon post-processing.
- Components and microsystems: multidisciplinary research on new microsystems.
The clean room
- Managed by a staff of specialists
- Open to all users
- Equipped with modern and powerful processing machines
The CMi and its users
The operation of CMi is the responsibility of the staff. The staff is a team of engineers and technicians, specialists in microtechnologies who guarantee the availability of processing equipment, evaluate, install and operate processing equipment, train the users, develop new processing steps and improve the existing ones, and assist researchers with technical advice. The users of CMi are undergraduate students, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers. The core activities of CMi are laboratory experimentation and development of processes and techniques of interest to EPFL and to its partners. The user’s access to the clean room is prioritized in the following order:
- educational activities
- internal research
- partnership research with other academic institutions
All activity in the clean room is invoiced on the basis of hourly processing rate. Integration services may be carried out occasionally by the CMi staff according to the availability of its personnel