Operations and Maintenance Support for the Giga-to-Nanoelectronics Centre

千兆到纳米电子学(G2N)设施是加拿大大面积电子学(LAE)研究的中心。G2N最初由520万美元的CFI赠款(总计1700万美元)资助，成立的目的是建立加拿大在大面积电子领域的研究努力，成为该国新兴平板显示和图像传感器技术的领先设施。G2N在校园内支持来自六个部门的10个不同的工程/科学小组，并为从跨国公司到植根于G2N的加拿大初创企业的工业研究提供便利。该设施是与加拿大和世界各地十几个学术机构建立关键伙伴关系的催化剂。该实验室使来自不同研究兴趣的研究人员能够合成新型电子材料，开发在刚性和柔性平台上创建薄膜设备的工艺，研究由塑料和生物质量材料制成的电子墨水的新加工方法，并使不同的材料能够组装成具有增强功能的微系统。该设施提供了突破性的研究，导致了两家初创公司的创建，Ignis Innovation和Ka Imagation，其技术是在G2N内发明和开发的。Ignis创新公司生产用于有机发光二极管平板显示器的新型显示技术，而KA成像公司提供独特的低成本高分辨率X射线医学成像仪。G2N提供了大量的研究能力，吸引了电气工程、化学工程、机械工程、化学和物理领域的用户。这是一个独特的设施，将十几个不同的小组聚集在一栋建筑中，并提供了一个环境，使工业用户和学生用户可以在同一实验室中一起工作，共享相同的设备，并从头开始构建自己的原型。2011年，G2N执行委员会(EC)实施了一项雄心勃勃的两阶段五年业务计划，第一阶段的目标是增加用户注册并建立可持续的收入基础，同时以高效和安全的方式运营。G2N将用户注册人数增加了近2倍，并增加了支持这一增长的工作人员。虽然计划的执行取得了成功，但由于设备使用量增加，导致维修和保养周期增加，供应消耗增加，导致工具和基础设施紧张。该设施的研究范围正在扩大，吸引的额外资金正在使其正常运营变得紧张。这项建议的目的是在实验室过渡到新的研究领域期间为其提供关键支持。

The Giga-to-Nanoelectronics (G2N) Facility is the hub of Large-area Electronics (LAE) research in Canada. Funded originally from a $5.2M CFI grant ($17M total), G2N was founded to establish Canada’s research effort in large-area electronics, becoming the country’s leading facility for emerging flat-panel display and image sensor technologies. G2N supports 10 different groups on campus in Engineering/Science from six departments and facilitates industrial research for corporations from multi-nationals to Canadian start-ups with roots in G2N. The facility is a catalyst for enabling key partnerships with more than a dozen academic institutions throughout Canada and the world. The lab enables researchers from diverse research interests to synthesize novel electronic materials, develop processes to create thin-film devices on rigid and flexible platforms, investigate novel processing approaches for printing electronic inks made of plastic and bio-mass materials, and enables assembly of disparate materials for creating microsystems with enhanced functionality. The facility has provided break through research that has resulted in the creation of two start-up companies, IGNIS Innovation and KA Imaging, whose technology was invented and developed within G2N. IGNIS Innovation produces novel display technology for organic light-emitting diode flat panel display while KA Imaging provides unique low-cost high-resolution x-ray medical imagers. The G2N enables a host of research capabilities that has attracted users from the field of electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and physics. It is a unique facility, bringing together nearly a dozen different groups together into one building and providing an environment that industrial and student users can work together in the same lab, sharing the same equipment, and build their own protoypes from scratch. In 2011, the G2N Executive Committee (EC) implemented an aggressive two-phase five-year business plan with the Phase I objective to increase user enrollment and build a sustainable revenue base while operating in an efficient and safe manner. The G2N has increased user enrolment by nearly 2× and added staff to support that growth. While the execution of the plan has been successful, the tools and infrastructure has been strained due to the increased usage of the equipment resulting in increased repair and maintenance cycles and supply consumption. The facility is expanding in its research scope and the additional that have been attracted is straining its normal operations. This proposal is targeted to provide critical support for the lab during its transition into new areas of research.