On April 27th and 28th, the Smart Systems Integration Conference & Exhibition, SSI for short, took place. More than 100 participants from all over Germany, Europe and the world attended the event in Grenoble, France, which was diversified as well as exciting. Highly interesting keynotes, a total of 70 speakers spread over five tracks, 15 technical sessions, a poster session and an exhibitor pitch session dealt intensively with Smart Systems along the entire value chain. The participants took advantage of the numerous insights, best practices, presentations, keynotes and demonstrations to network intensively afterwards. Finally yet importantly, the Thomas Gessner Award was presented for the third time during the event.
On April 27th, the two conference chairs Dr. Stefan Finkbeiner (Bosch Sensortec) and Prof. Thomas Otto (Fraunhofer ENAS) opened the now 15th Smart Systems Integration Conference at the Maison MINATEC in Grenoble/France. Organized by Fraunhofer ENAS, EPoSS – – European Association on Smart Systems Integration and Silicon Saxony, this year’s SSI conference and exhibition also put the spotlight on Smart Systems. Thanks to the support of the SSI core team, the scientific committee and the two main sponsors Bosch Sensortec and Critical Manufacturing, the SSI once again offered a diversified conference and supporting program for the more than 100 participants. 70 technical papers in 15 sessions dealt intensively with a total of five technological tracks. Joint excursions and conference dinner after eventful hours of technical exchange offered all participants the best opportunity to get to know each other better.
The high-ranked keynote speeches covered the full thematic scope of the SSI. They were held by Bert De Colvenaer, Executive Director of KDT Joint Undertaking (“From ECSEL to KDT to CHIPS JU”); Laurent Remont, Vicepresident of Sensor Solutions at Infineon Technologies (“Sense-compute-connect-power: a holistic sensor system approach to enable greener, easier and safer life”); Olivier Faynot, Silicon Department Head of CEA-Leti (“Overcoming the Data Deluge Challenges with Greener Electronics”), Andrea Onetti, Executive Vice President of ST Microelectronics Srl Italy (“Making micromirrors system integration friendly: thin-film piezo technology”), and Harald Kuhn, Director of Fraunhofer ENAS and Director of the Center for Microtechnologies at TU Chemnitz (“Smart Systems will create the future”).
The participants were offered a free choice of topics in the five conference tracks “Key Enablers for Next Generation Smart Systems”, “Key Technologies for Smart Systems”, “Application Domains: Mobility, Energy, Industry”, “Application Domains: Food, Biomedical, Healthy Living” or “Strategy and Business Creation” – as well as the best input from experts in the respective fields. The topics were oriented along the complete value chain of Smart Systems and addressed the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) between 1 and 9, ranging from “Key Enablers for Smart Systems of the Next Generation” over technologies to applications in various industries. The track “Strategy and Business Creation” organized by EPoSS Association focused on Photonics Integration on the one hand and on Digital Innovation Hubs and the integration of start-ups and SMEs on the other hand.
For the third time, the “Thomas Gessner Award” was presented. By this, Fraunhofer ENAS promotes applied research by awarding this prize for excellent scientific work within the annual Smart Systems Integration Conference. The award is aimed at national and international master and doctoral students in the field of Smart Systems Integration, whose thesis has been evaluated at least “very good” and does not date back more than two years. The evaluation procedure takes particular into account the novelty of the scientific and methodological approach, the progress of knowledge, the translation of scientific results into application and the proof of commercial success. This year, the prize went to the young scientist Apoorva Sharma from Chemnitz University of Technology for his contribution “Prospects of laser annealing for magnetoresistive sensors and MRAM manufacturing”.
The most exciting poster contribution was awarded on the last day of the event. The winner was Sven Nitzsche from the FZI Research Center for Information Technology for his poster “Comparison of Artificial and Spiking Neural Networks for Ambient-Assisted Living”. Mr. Nitzsche is thus already the first confirmed speaker of the 16th SSI next year. He follows his predecessor, Claudia Bruno, who was the winner of the Best Poster Award 2021. This year, virtually connected, she presented her talk on last year’s winning paper and subsequent progress once again. In addition, Bruno Fain of CEA Leti received the Best Paper Award 2021 during this year’s conference dinner – i.e., the award for the best conference paper of the previous year.
The organizers of SSI – Fraunhofer ENAS, EPoSS Association and Silicon Saxony – would like to thank all speakers for their contributions and the participating companies and institutions Robert Bosch, Bosch Sensortec, Lynred, Renault, Infineon Technologies, STMicroelectronics, Fraunhofer ENAS, Fraunhofer IPMS, Tyndall National Institute, CEA-Leti, TU Chemnitz and TU Delft for their exciting technical content. Finally yet importantly, we would like to thank all participants of this year for their interest and all sponsors for their important support.
We are already looking forward to the Smart Systems Integration 2023 in Flanders/Belgium.