RAS Nodes

Various laser systems for ablation, soldering, welding, marking, adjustment, sintering, stereolithography, LOM.

The award-winning Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC) forms part of Cardiff University, which dates back to 1883 and is one of Britain's major civic universities. The 80-strong ISO 9001:2000 accredited Centre has an international reputation for its leading-edge research in advanced manufacturing and information technology spanning a broad spectrum of subjects.

The Fraunhofer-Institut für Biomedizinische Technik (IBMT) is one of the five institutes of the Alliance Life Science of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. IBMT applies its potential on subjects, such as non- or minimal-invasivity, microsystems engineering, implant technology (interfaces between technical and biological microsystems), molecular and cellular biotechnology, nano(bio)technology, telemetric data and energy transfer, health telematics and multilocal sensor systems connected by communication technologies.
One main research field of the Miniaturized Systems Group at IBMT is the development of microfluidic devices for point of care applications. IBMT has a fully equipped class 100 clean room and has expertise in designing and fabricating microfluidic biochip interfaces as well as in the whole field of biochip packaging. Technologies like reel-to-reel hot embossing and lamination as well as moulding are available. Another research field is the development of modules and systems for the wireless transmission of biological & physiological signals for bio-monitoring and remote control of active medical implants. Included herein is the wireless transmission of energy for the operation of medical implants. The group has about 10 scientific and technical fulltime employees.

The Institute for Microsystem Technology (IMTEK), founded in 1995, is one of the largest academic institutions in this field. As it was created completely from scratch as part of the new-founded Faculty of Applied Sciences we share a new campus with modern teaching and training facilities together with the Institute of Computer Science. The foundation of a new technical faculty provided the chance not only to use new facilities but also to create a novel engineering course which differs significantly from traditional engineering disciplines. So the basis for the specification of the course has been the questions for the indispensable skills of a ‘universal’ engineer of the 21st century. The curriculum was inaugurated in October 1996 when the first classes started in the course microsystem technology. The first graduations have been in spring 2001. Between 1998 and 2001 about 90 freshmen started studying Microsystem Technology every year. The curriculum has been modified several times since 1996 in order to comply more and more with our initial goals.