Consortium
With about 1300 employees AIT is Austria’s largest non-academic research institute and focuses on the key infrastructure issues of the future.
Within PHIDELITI, the Center for Digital Safety & Security will be engaged. The center devotes concerted efforts to foster the roll-out of national infrastructure through deployment of state-of-the-art technologies in the area of public administration, power grids, health care, transportation networks, payment systems, as well as next-generation telecommunication systems. Towards the latter, the center is making a significant contribution in the fields of optical and quantum communications and wireless networks.
Since 2004 TU Graz was present in the field of communications by the Institute of Communications Networks and Satellite Communications (IKS), the Institute of Broadband Communication (IBK) and the Institute of Signal Processing and Speech Communications (SPSC) as former parts of the Department of Communications and Wave Propagation.
In 2010 the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering (IHF) was established at TU Graz to cover the research topics in microwave and mm-wave technology. Furthermore the already existing task groups for Photonic Engineering and for Radar systems were integrated into the institute in 2011. Since then more than 2.5 M€ were invested in RF, microwave, mm-wave and photonic specialized measurement and research equipment.
IHF focuses on Wireless Technologies (including Free Space Optics (FSO), radar-techniques, microwaves and RF-circuit design and measurements. The IHF research groups have high quality experience in Atmospheric Wave Propagation of RF and light and hybrid applications by combining different Communication technologies on chip-, system- and network-level. These areas are very well covered in teaching and research. Furthermore, scientific instruments for space applications are developed and were developed in the past. Close cooperation exists with Joanneum Research, the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and companies around Graz. Additional activities are done with Vienna Telecommunications Research Centres, the European Space Agency, the European Union, and in the past with the Russian Space Agency.
Infineon, a world leader in semiconductors, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of semiconductors and system solutions. The focus of its activities is on automotive electronics, industrial electronics, RF applications and sensors, mobile devices and hardware-based security. Headquartered in Villach, Infineon Technologies Austria AG belongs to the Infineon Technologies Group.
IFAT is a leading provider for chip sets for wireless infrastructure equipment in Europe. IFAT will act as manufacturing circuit design and production partner for GaN-on-SiC and SiGe RF devices. IFAT supplies the SiGe BiCMOS technology with 300 GHz/600 GHz ft/fmax, which is already utilized in point to point communication links, beamforming circuits for 5G mm-Wave solutions, car radar applications and mm-wave security scanners in a frequency range up to 145 GHz.
The Institute of Electrodynamics, Microwave and Circuit Engineering (EMCE) of TU Wien possesses an internationally known competence in design of analogue and optoelectronic integrated circuits.
In the area of analogue integrated circuit design the integration of analogue circuits, e.g. operational amplifiers, mixers or filters, in state-of-the art nanometer CMOS technologies is the main focus. With the ongoing shrinking of the technology the supply voltages drop as well as the characteristics of the devices gets worse and worse. These limiting conditions necessitate new concepts and innovative ideas in circuit design.
The second focus is on optoelectronic integrated circuits. The integration of photosensitive devices in CMOS and BiCMOS silicon technologies is the first step, the next one is the integration of complete optical receivers and signal processing.
Both research areas require beside careful design also the characterization of the realized microchips, which can be done in the own laboratory.