At the invitation of Mr. Alain BUGAT, Chairman of French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and Mr. Andrea CUOMO, Executive Vice President of STMicroelectronics, Vice Minister MA with the Chinese Delegation visited the Research Center of the two organizations at Grenoble, France from July 31 to August 6, 2006 under the China-France IT Cooperation Framework.

 

At the formal meeting, China and France briefed on the current S&T development, in particular cooperation in microprocessors. The directors of various projects on French side elaborated on the development of cooperation in multi-core microprocessor, Long-Xin CPU and middleware. Both sides are satisfied with current achievements.

 

Vice Minister MA and the delegation visited two subdivisions at CEA Center at Grenoble, namely, CROLLES II Alliance R&D Center and MINATEC Center (French Center for innovation in micro & nanotechnology), the most advanced micro & nanotechnology innovation and research center in Europe. The two centers are major base for the innovation, research and application of micro & nanotechnology, receiving the largest amount of funds in France in the past decade. At present there are only a few major international centers having the potential to respond to the challenge of extreme miniaturization and CEA Center at Grenoble is one of them.

 

The delegation visited the Underwater Robot Laboratory of Mediterranean Center, French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) in Toulon. They also held a fruitful meeting with Director of European Union and Industrial Programs, European Space Agency and Director of the French Agency for Innovation (ANVAR) in Paris.