Coordinating over 100 cutting-edge companies in a bid to develop advanced power electronics manufacturing capabilities is all in a day’s work for the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, as Michael Fancher, Vice President of Business and Economic Outreach, explains...  

What was the motivation behind the establishment of the New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium (NY-PEMC), and how did the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) get involved?

Through the leadership of Governor Andrew M Cuomo, New York State has positioned itself as a global leader in innovation and stands alone in its ability to drive R&D of next-generation materials for use on semiconductors. The NY-PEMC is a natural extension of New York’s 21^st Century nanotechnology-enabled economy and an embodiment of Governor Cuomo’s economic development and job growth strategy.

The US Department of Energy issued a Federal Opportunity Announcement (FOA) at the end of spring 2013 under the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership programme to establish a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation with a focus on wide band gap (WBG) power electronic devices. The primary focus of this FOA was to support domestic device, equipment, material and related assisting manufacturing companies as well as integrated systems companies that would deploy such devices in an array of market applications.

The FOA identified such public-private partnership models for consideration by applicants based on SUNY Poly’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), Sematech and Fraunhofer Institute, among others. Given SUNY Poly’s experience over the past decade in participating in various capacities with an array of consortia (eg. the US Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC), Global 450 Consortium (G450C), Facilities 450mm Consortium (F450C), Sematech, etc.), alliances (eg. IBM Alliance) and joint ventures (the International Multiphase Program for Lithography Science and Engineering (IMPLSE) with IBM and ASML), the opportunity to lead a state-wide effort by coordinating a team of world-class industry, academic, government, research and development and deployment (RD&D) partners was a logical next step for SUNY Poly’s capabilities and facilities across New York State.

Key to Governor Cuomo’s vision for driving high technology growth across New York State has been SUNY Poly’s public-private partnership model and its focus on supporting the transition of technology innovation to commercialisation, as well as the education and development of a highly skilled workforce. The success of SUNY Poly’s public-private partnership model was recently recognised by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which ranked SUNY Poly CNSE number one in the nation in higher education R&D funding by businesses, beating Duke University (#2), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (#3) and Stanford (#7).

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