imec
| imec | |
|---|---|
| Formation | January 16, 1984 |
| Type | Independent research and innovation center |
| Headquarters | Leuven, Belgium |
| Staff | About 6,500 |
| Website | imec-int.com |
imec (written in lowercase) is a research and innovation center for nanoelectronics in Leuven, Belgium. It was founded on January 16, 1984 as the Interuniversity Micro-Electronics Center, and it describes itself as the world's largest independent center of its kind, with about 6,500 staff and a 300-millimeter semiconductor pilot line.[1][2] Its partners include chip and equipment makers such as ASML, Intel, Samsung and TSMC. A smaller part of its work serves biology: it fabricated the Neuropixels probes for recording from neurons, in 2020 it agreed to develop molecular electronics chips for a sequencing company, and in 2025 it announced solid-state nanopores made on 300-millimeter wafers.[3][4][5]
History
The founder was Roger Van Overstraeten, who led a team of researchers from KU Leuven and had approval to proceed by the end of 1983. The new center started with 70 people and a stated mission "to make microchips ever smaller, more powerful, and more energy efficient."[1] It has since grown to more than 6,500 people from over 100 countries, and its 300-millimeter pilot line is described on its site as a 3.5 billion euro investment.[2]
Biology on chips
The Allen Institute's announcement of the Neuropixels probe noted that imec does not usually manufacture products on an industrial scale. The probe, reported in Nature on November 9, 2017, is a silicon shank about 10 millimeters long, thinner than a human hair, carrying nearly 1,000 recording sites at a density of 100 sites per millimeter. Janelia Research Campus led it, with the Allen Institute for Brain Science and University College London, and imec designed and fabricated the devices.[3][6]
On May 5, 2020, imec and Roswell Biotechnologies announced a partnership to make molecular electronics biosensor chips, in which a single molecule is built into a standard CMOS chip as the electrical sensing element. The companies said initial products were expected in 2021.[4]
Solid-state nanopores
Most solid-state nanopores are made one at a time in a silicon nitride membrane, by an electron beam or by controlled dielectric breakdown. On December 9, 2025 imec announced "the first successful wafer-scale fabrication of solid-state nanopores using EUV lithography on 300mm wafers", presented at the International Electron Devices Meeting that month. The pores were as small as about 10 nanometers across, highly uniform over the wafer, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 6.2 in electrical and translocation tests.[5][7]
A second line of work covers the readout electronics. At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in February 2026, researchers from KU Leuven and imec presented a 256-channel readout chip for solid-state nanopores, built in a 65-nanometer CMOS process, with a noise of 193 picoamperes RMS in a bandwidth of 1 megahertz and event detection built in. The journal version, in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits in 2026, describes the array as having 193-picoampere transimpedance amplifiers.[8][9]
Imec is also listed among the laboratory partners of CuspAI, the materials-discovery company that Molecular Reality Corporation places in its brain column.[10]
In Molecular Reality's usage
After it withdrew the Burnerphone, a unit for making pores by breakdown, Molecular Reality Corporation decided to make its pores on wafers in a central facility, according to company records.[11] Imec has published how it makes pores on wafers 300 millimeters across.
See also
References
- ^ a b "Extremely small, profoundly big: imec's forty-year microchip odyssey". imec. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ a b "About us". imec. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ a b "New silicon probes record activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously". Allen Institute. November 8, 2017.
- ^ a b "Roswell Biotechnologies and imec to develop first molecular electronics biosensor chips" (Press release). imec. May 5, 2020.
- ^ a b "Imec demonstrates first wafer-scale fabrication of solid-state nanopores using EUV lithography" (Press release). imec. December 9, 2025.
- ^ Jun, James J. et al. (2017). "Fully integrated silicon probes for high-density recording of neural activity". Nature 551: 232-236. doi:10.1038/nature24636.
- ^ Chaudhuri, Ashesh Ray et al. (2025). "Fabrication of solid-state nanopores with EUV lithography". doi:10.1109/iedm50572.2025.11353639.
- ^ Crols, Jarne et al. (2026). "29.3 A 256-channel event-driven readout for solid-state nanopore single-molecule sensing with 193pArms noise in a 1MHz bandwidth". pp. 502-504. doi:10.1109/isscc49663.2026.11409180.
- ^ Crols, Jarne et al. (2026). "A 256-channel solid-state nanopore readout array with 193-pA TIAs and event detection at 1-MHz in 65-nm CMOS". IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. doi:10.1109/jssc.2026.3721767.
- ^ "CuspAI: AI-powered materials discovery". CuspAI. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ "Company records". Molecular Reality Corporation. October 2026.