Overseas Trends

A report on the 13th Micromachine Summit, held in Venice, Italy
All the Japanese presentations were detailed incontent and well-received by the audience, no doubt
reinforcing Japan’s position as the permanent
secretariat of the summit. A technical tour took placeon the 28th, with a visit to NanoFab, part of the MEMS
and nanotech cluster in the Veneto region, after which
the meeting drew to a successful conclusion.

1. 100 participants from 18 countries
The three-day 13th Micromachine Summit was heldat the Telecom Future Centre, in the Italian city ofVenice, from April 26 to 28. This year’s summit wasattended by 100 delegates and observers (there were88 last year) from 18 nations - Australia, Canada,China, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea,Romania, Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom, UnitedStates, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain,Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Sweden andFinland. Romania was represented for the first time ata Micromachine Summit. The chief delegate of theJapanese team was Isao Shimoyama of The Universityof Tokyo, and there were 9 other observers fromJapan.

4. The 14th Summit will be held in South Korea
It has been decided that the 14th summit will beheld in the South Korean city of Daejeon, from
Wednesday, April 30 2008 to Saturday, May 3. We areconfident that the Micromachine Summit will continue
to serve as an opportunity for lively international
exchange in the MEMS and nanotech fields, and hopethat all our colleagues will fully use theseopportunities.

2. Fifty-five presentations over four sessions
Professor Paolo Dario of The Sant’ Anna School of
Advanced Studies of Pisa acted as General Chair at themeeting, and ITC-irst’s Mario Zen as General Co-Chair.
There were 55 presentations given at the following
four sessions held between the 26th and 28th.
Session 1 Country/Region Review
Session 2 Tools for Growth: Strategies,Cooperation, Infrastructures andEducation,
Session 3 From Research to Commercializationand Standardization: Market,Industrialization and Standardization
Session 4 New Concepts and Technologies

3. Five presentations from Japan by Professor
Shimoyama and others

The participants gather in the courtyard of the Future
Telecom Center

In Session 1, Professor Shimoyama gave apresentation entitled “Fine MEMS - The Highly
Integrated, Complex MEMS Project”, which was a midterm report on the project that started last year. In
Session 3, MMC executive director Keiichi Aoyagi
gave a presentation under the title “MEMS Industry
Forum: Market, Standardization and IndustryDevelopment,” describing the work of the Center with
an emphasis on the MEMS Industry Forum. Dr. Koichi
Karaki, an executive of Olympus Corporation who wasattending as an observer, gave a presentation entitled“Recent Progress of MEMS and Nano-Technology atOlympus.” In Session 4, Dr. Masao Arakawa, Directorof Matsushita Electric Works, delivered a presentation
on “Wafer Level Packaging Technology at Matsushita
Electric Works” and Omron executive Koichi Imanaka
on “Recent Activity on Micro/Nano Technology at
OMRON Corporation.”

Japan’s chief delegate, Professor Shimoyama of The
University of Tokyo delivers his presentation

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