CORDIS Archive
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The 'Design Clusters' action aims to foster excellency in design skills for selected priority themes of electronics design, and to bring these skills to broad industrial use. Cluster themes addressed so far are
* 'Low Power Design' (to reduce the power consumption of electronic equipment, needed for instance in portable communication and medical applicances), and
* 'Analog-Digital Design' (to increase, at reduced cost, the performance of signal processing systems that combine analog and digital parts, by integrating analog and digital functions on a single electronic device; needed for instance in automotive and instrumentation equipment).
The 'Design Clusters' concept tackles at the same time both objectives, excellency in design and broad industrial introduction. Each cluster consists of a number of socalled 'design experiments', i.e. targeted activities carrying out best practice work related to the cluster theme, often combined with research and demonstration of novel approaches. No multi-partner requirements are imposed on a single design experiment to favour efficient work focussed on clear targets.
However each design experiment must contribute effectively to the further dissemination of the acquired design know-how and experience. In order to ensure such effective dissemination, participants of all design experiments in a cluster are linked together in a Concerted Action lead by the 'Cluster Coordinator'. The 'Cluster Coordinator' defines the detailed dissemination targets, ensures the proper extraction and capturing of design know-how and experiences, makes the information accessible to third parties and organises the information flow within the cluster and to the outside.
A cluster is set up as an integrated coordinated measure, i.e.as one Esprit project which is, however, implemented by a number of individual contracts: one RTD contract for each design experiment, and one Concerted Actions contract (with design experiment participants as associate contractors) for Technical Coordination and Dissemination.
Different incentives are foreseen to stimulate the contribution of each design experiment to the dissemination action. The Commission contributes 100% of the direct costs related to technical coordination and dissemination, carried out under the Concerted Actions contract. Furthermore the Commission's financial support of each design experiment depends on effective contributions to dissemination, secured by special conditions in the design experiment's RTD contract.
Further Information can be found under /esprit/src/info97.htm
The URL for this page is /esprit/src/tcsdc.htm
It was last updated on 30 July 1997, and is maintained by John Magan - john.magan@dg3.cec.be