ST joins MIT, ultra-low-power MCU devices group

ST will work with MIT's Microsystems Industrial Group on ultra-low-power electronics, sensor systems, and medical electronics.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 11/21/2008

STMicroelectronics today announced it has joined the Microsystems Industrial Group (MIG) industry consortium at the Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT describes MTL as an interdepartmental laboratory that supports microsystems research encompassing work in circuits and systems, MEMS, electronic and photonic devices, and molecular and nanotechnology.

The MIG is an industry consortium that was founded in the 1980s to support MTL infrastructure and provide direction to the MTL research and educational objectives in consultation with the faculty.

“By joining MTL, ST will be able to push its research efforts to fully exploit ‘near-threshold’ technology and reach far below the actual power consumption limits of energy-efficient system-on-chip solutions,” said Elio Guidetti, ST's director for ultra-low-power platforms, in a statement. “This technology can enable the development of an entirely new generation of microcontrollers for wireless sensors and portable medical devices.”

Analog Devices, IBM, Intel, and National Semiconductor are among the short list of companies working in MTL's MIG. ST is the first European company to join the group.

“We are thrilled to have STMicroelectronics join the Microsystems Industrial Group as the first European company in the consortium,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, MTL director and an MIT professor of electrical engineering, in the statement. “We are looking forward to an active collaboration in a number of important areas including ultra-low-power electronics, sensor systems, and medical electronics.”