April saw the official opening of the not-for-profit high tech consortium called BRIDG, (gobridg.com) in Osceola County, Florida, US, set up to “Bridge the Innovation Development Gap” that exists between companies and universities doing research in the US.
Its service areas will include research, development and commercialisation for advanced technologies in smart sensors, imagers, advanced devices and 2.5D/3D chip integration.
BRIDG is housed in the Centre for Neovation (formerly known as the Florida Advanced Manufacturing Research Center) located on the 500-acre NeoCity site, near Kissimmee. The facility was designed and constructed in 24 months and boasts one of the most advanced fabrication labs for research micro and nano electronics, semiconductors and photonics.
The a two-story 109,000ft2 (33,223m2) semiconductor research and manufacturing facility, was built in two phases.
Skanska was instrumental in the first phase, which involved provision of a 109,000ft2 shell building; a 7,000ft2 ISO 6 (Class 1,000) cleanroom; 2,500ft2 ISO 7 (Class 10,000 ) cleanroom; 4,000 ft2 of cleanroom utility support and chemical spaces; 1,540ft2 of support office space, including a data centre; 1,540ft2 of support analytical laboratory space; clean area locker rooms and gowning spaces, as well as other support facility requirements.
The second phase involved the construction of a two-story, 24,000ft2 office building in front of the R&D building.
Listed among BRIDG's partners are the Argonne National Laboratories, Kissimmee-based Photon-X, Florida International University, the University of South Florida and the University of Florida as well as other international high tech companies.
