GRENOBLE, France, Jan. 14, 2002 — When Jean-Charles Guibert looks at what is now a handful of abandoned military buildings and vacant fields near the heart of Grenoble, he sees great things.

null

“At the end of 2003, when all the construction will be finished, you will have 120,000 square meters of facilities devoted to micro and nanotechnology,” he said, sweeping his arm in the direction of the crumbling barracks.

null

Guibert handles programming and partnerships for the Minatec project: a giant plan to

null

centralize technological innovations focusing on the infinitely small. It will be $160.3 million worth of buildings and clean rooms to house up to 3,500 researchers, entrepreneurs and students working on micro and nano projects. The site will hold two engineering schools, joint laboratories for still-developing startups and research and development teams from large companies.

null

If everything goes according to plan, Minatec will function as a one-stop-shopping location for startup companies working on micro and nano applications. It is to include three distinct divisions: education and research, which are mostly state funded in France, and industrial transfer, which should eventually fund itself.

null

Its supporters hope that in time it will turn the region into a European “Silicon Valley” for micro and nano. “It is a concept you could call the ‘superincubator’ for startups because we will offer them office space, clean rooms at market rates and a whole environment in which they can grow,” said Constant Axelrad, Minatec’s other head of programming and strategic partnerships. “The startup entrepreneurs won’t even need to leave the compound to meet the people they need to speak to — they will just talk to them at the cafeteria.”

null

This future megacenter stands at the foot of the 8,858-foot-high Chartreuse massif on the location of a former nuclear research center. The site, which has maintained a level of security fit for a military compound, currently houses the CEA-Leti, a state-run scientific and electronics research lab, owned by the French Atomic Energy Commission.

null

The CEA-Leti pioneered some of the technology transfers from state-funded research labs to the private sector. In 2000, it patented 220 technologies, making the center the fourth biggest source of patent applications nationally. The tactic is bearing fruit; the patents brought in around $4.8 million in licensing revenues last year.

null

Minatec is hoping to use the same business model to eventually make its industrial transfer wing self-funding. Like the CEA-Leti, it will collect ideas within the local research community. Following market and feasibility studies, these ideas will, or will not, become startups. Minatec will sell the intellectual property rights in exchange for shares in the new entity. The startups can set up shop on the premises, paying for rent and use of the facilities — but only during their development phase.

null

“The startups aren’t meant to stay on the premises forever,” Guibert said. “They are to grow and eventually leave the site to make room for others, probably within three to four years.”

null

MEMS company Tronics is one such CEA-Leti spinoff. The four-year-old concern is currently housed a two-story temporary structure near the future Minatec building site. Tronics, which now employs 20 people, has been growing steadily within the security of the compound. Sales in 2001 reached $1 million, up from $267,000 in 1998. The company reported an operating profit last year and plans to move out of the facility in a year and a half.

null

“It was very important for us to be appended to the CEA-Leti in the initial phase,” recalled Stephane Renard, Tronics’ chief executive. “When you are a very small company and you are about to sign your very first contract, your credibility comes from the Leti because people are afraid of working with a company with no track record.” According to Renard, the company would not exist without the infrastructure and facilities the CEA-Leti could provide.

null

This kind of model has generated some international curiosity. Roger Grace Associates, a U.S.-based small tech consulting service, has visited the Minatec project while preparing a report for the state of Michigan. Of all the microtechnology clusters Grace has seen around the world, Minatec is the most all-inclusive and the only one that plans to self-finance itself through patent revenues. “That concept is brilliant and should be mandatory for projects like these,” he said. “Otherwise, where is the money going to come from? You can’t depend on government handouts — you need to become self sufficient.”

null

Robert Turner, of microsystems consultancy KBIC in Britain, has also made the pilgrimage to Grenoble. He said it is important to deliberately create a dynamic to jump-start this kind of economic and scientific beehive. “It is a reasonable model because when you get enough activity a good number of real players will gravitate there,” he said. “And when companies are setting up, they need to have a place in which they can test products and do a first run of production on equipment that generally is very expensive.”

null

The project appears to be gelling in the minds of the European micro and nanotechnology communities. Nexus, the global organization linking microsystems firms and research labs, felt the pull. The 500-member grouping of industry, researchers and academics decided to move its head office from Berlin to Grenoble last year. It will join other pan-European networks like Jessica, Eurimus and Euraccess already there.

null

For now, the Minatec project is just taking off. A clearer picture of its viability will have to wait for the buildings to be constructed and for the students, scientists and entrepreneurs to start working side by side.

null

Right now, Minatec is mostly about microtechnology, rather than nanotechnology. The center wants to attract more nanotech activity, but has yet to generate the same kind of interest and momentum it has spawned in microtechnology circles.

null

And Minatec is not without rivals. The IMEC center in Leuven, Belgium, the NMRC in Cork, Ireland and IVAM in Dortmund, Germany are all developing speedily as regional magnets for micro and nanotechnology.

null

Minatec’s all-inclusive approach is gathering speed and converts however, guided by a simple philosophy: If we build it, they will come.

null

Related Story: MEMSCAP still thinks large despite telecom’s troubles