Facilitation Center for Advanced Electronics Design

Government has approved funding for a proposal submitted by Department of Electronic & Telecommunication Engineering through Ministry of Higher Education to setup a "Facilitation Center for Advanced Electronic Design" at University of Moratuwa commencing January 2014.

Objectives of the Proposed Center

- Development of Human Resources related to Advanced Electronic Design covering Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) Development, IC design, Design for Testing and Design for Manufacturing
- Encouraging startups in the electronic value chain (particularly on IP Development, IC design, product design and development) and supporting them to cross key initial bottlenecks like high software tool costs.

Proposed center will be open for staff and students of all Engineering faculties in Sri Lanka and for any startup companies working in this area.

Expected Outcomes:

1. Training of a minimum of 100 Design Engineers per year in the area of Semiconductor IP Development, IC Design, Design for Testing and Design for Manufacturing (selected graduate engineers from all engineering faculties or any private sector company who wants their Engineers re-trained on this area)
2. Facilitation of the production of functional physical prototype ICs through Multi Project Wafer Facility – This could be for selected undergraduate or graduate projects or IC designs from start-ups.
3. Setup of Start-up Companies in the Electronic Value Chain – a minimum of 10 within the next decade.
4. The creation of niche high value addition Industry with first export revenues expected within 2 years of the establishment of the Center.
5. The possibility of a US$ 1 billion new export revenue stream within the next decade (based on the average revenue per employee of US$ 500,000 in the Semiconductor industry and 2000 expert workforce by 2023.