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

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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.