ESPRIT Report 1993/94
The European Commission, Directorate-General for Industry, has published a report on ESPRIT projects and initiatives for 1993/94. Following the April 1993 call, a total of 202 projects were selected for funding from the 1,277 proposals received. The report covers the activities, objectives and results of these projects within the following ESPRIT areas: - Basic research; - Microelectronics; - Software and advanced information processing; - European Systems and Software Initiative (ESSI) and the European Software Institute: software "best practice" actions; - High-performance computing and networking; - Peripherals systems, business systems and house automation; - Computer-integrated manufacturing and engineering; - Open Microprocessor Systems Initiative (OMI). The following key results were achieved in 1993/94: - ESSI launched over 100 pilot application experiments and dissemination actions, chosen from over 980 proposals. - The European Software Institute, supported in its start-up phase by ESPRIT, was established with 14 European software companies as founding members. - The European IT conference, EITC 94, was held in June 1994 as the successor to the ESPRIT Conference Week. The accompanying IT exhibition focused on three key themes for Europe's IT industry: the home, the workplace and mobility. - An Information Technology European Awards scheme (ITEA) was announced under the auspices of the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering, with ESPRIT funding for the first-year pilot phase. - The Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) feasibility study, involving the EU and EFTA countries, Japan, USA, Australia and Canada, was completed. - ICL launched the GOLDRUSH parallel processing system based on work in the EDS project. - SGS-Thomson launched a power-line modem based on work in the EHSA-IDC project. - Meiko won the tendering exercise to supply the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with a highly parallel computer system, the CS-2, whose memory technology is based on the results of HPCN project work. - Siemens launched SYNAPSE, a "neuro-computer" performing 8,000 times as fast as conventional workstations for certain applications, based on work in the GALA-TEA project. - Following the successful adoption of the Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE) standard by ECMA as the first public standard in this area, the recent ISO ballot on its acceptance as an ISO standard was carried; PCTE is on course for formal adoption in 1994. - ElipSys, a tool for building decision systems stemming from the APPLAUSE project, has been used by Systems & Management, an Italian systems house, in developing an environmental management system for evaluating and improving pollution in the Venice Lagoon. ElipSys is also being used by the International Cancer Research Fund in London to study protein structure. - Olivetti's PCC (Personal Computer Communications), combining multimedia and video communications, is now on the market, resulting from cooperation between Olivetti and British Telecom in the M-CUBE project. - Europe's electronics industry got a significant boost with the release by the JESSI Joint Logic consortium of a common set of target design rules for the 0.5 micron basic CMOS logic process. - Multidoc, a multimedia product stemming from the project of the same name, was installed at the Western European Union for tests. - The MARS real-time dependable computer system, developed in the PDCS basic research project, was adopted by European car manufacturers for vehicle control applications. - East Coast Scientific commercialized Threshold Current AFM, an ultra-high spatial resolution method developed in the ASSIST project for measuring electrical properties. - CIME projects made major contributions to the ISO STEP standard in the areas of mechanical design and ship construction. The primary objective of ESPRIT has been to reinforce cooperation between European industrial enterprises and to strengthen the technological base of the Community. This has broadly been achieved. However, analyses of the results of the programme have concluded that new orientations are needed in the general approach, in procedures and in methods of working. In the Fourth Framework Programme, the new focus will be on the emerging information infrastructure, with particular attention paid to the needs of users and the market, so as to improve the competitiveness of all industry in the European Union.