Intel's research announcement boosts 'innovation centre' hopes

Partnerships between the chip giant and Irish universities suggest a maturing of Ireland's research capability, reports Ian Campbell

THE GOVERNMENT’S ambition to turn Ireland into an innovation centre received a boost from Intel this week when the US chip manufacturer announced research partnerships with two Irish universities, an indication that the long road from laboratory to commercial application is a journey worth taking.

A $1.5 million (€1.12 million) collaboration with the Tyndall National Institute in University College Cork is already under way, and two projects started in Crann, the Trinity College nanoscience centre, have been transferred to Intel’s research facility in Portland, Oregon.

Intel works with around 100 universities across the globe but there is only one other example of a Tyndall-like collaboration. The relationship with Crann is also unusual, with Intel recruiting some of its researchers as well as placing five of its own people in Trinity.

“We only put researchers in residence in a handful of universities,” said Mike Mayberry, Intel’s director of components research, highlighting the special relationship. “We have a productive engagement in Ireland and we want to continue with that.”

So why Ireland? “Some of it has to do with physical location. In Ireland it’s a little easier to work because we have a large facility here. And some of it is because of the reputation of the universities.”

Mayberry is based in Portland but is used to regular forays into the wider world of research because it is intrinsic to Intel’s approach to innovation. “We realise we can’t think of everything we need to think about, so we want to engage with as many external groups as we can, universities especially. We want to see who can come up with the next set of great ideas.”

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, executive director of Crann, believes the Intel relationship with Irish universities reflects the growing maturity of the State’s research community, validating years of funding and government support.

“It might seem like a logical decision for Intel to focus on Ireland because it has 4,000 staff here and a research operation, but it doesn’t work like that. They work on the basis of what the university can do for them,” he said. “Intel doesn’t know the technology it will want in 2020 but it will develop research programmes to answer questions it expects to be asked.”

He points out that Intel had little appetite for research in Ireland in the 1990s because the State wasn’t ready. “With improvements in the university infrastructure, more funding and better academic staff, Intel saw enough quality and a critical mass of activity to warrant investing in research and partnership.”

At the Leixlip plant, Intel’s largest manufacturing operation outside of the US, wafer fabrication constantly draws on technological innovation to advance the production of electronic components. Though Mayberry stressed that the Irish research projects are about more than nanoelectronics for future wafer production, both Tyndall and Crann offer a good fit.

One of the two Crann projects that Intel has brought back to Oregon is exploring self-assembly technology to create controllable patterns on silicon substrates used in wafers.

The other is about integrating different materials to develop a new type of device. “We are looking at incorporating magnetic and silicon so you could have memory and processors co-located. That’s the project that prompted Intel to hire people from Crann,” said O’Brien.

The scale of the Government’s funding for research has received its fair share of criticism in the last year, but the Intel relationship with Irish researchers gives an interesting insight into how time and patience are fundamental to the process of turning good ideas into commercial entities.

“The most disruptive technologies take quite a long time to become production ready. Typically for university projects, we aim for five to 10 years out,” said Mayberry.

Crann is used to working to these timelines. Even when a project is taken over to Portland, it’s still early days.

“Intel gets more and more focused until you get an interesting technology that looks like it could answer some of its problems. Then the project is taken for internal research, evaluation and development for commercialisation. It’s about taking good ideas and stress-testing them,” explained O’Brien.

The intellectual property (IP) of anything that comes from collaboration is owned by the university but there are different parameters that come into play depending on the licensing agreements and commercial application. “The general rule is that it is a cost share. The company puts in 25 per cent of the funding and the university owns the IP,” said O’Brien.

The hard fact is that a lot of university research may never yield a commercial return, but this is hardly a surprise according to Mayberry. “Research is by nature uncertain. If you know what the outcome is, by definition it’s not research.”

“People like to focus on the application but another product of research is training people to solve problems. Having an educated population that understands science and know-how to solve problems is a critical part of being competitive.”