Philips gets state aid for R&D
The research and development will take five years and will be undertaken at Philip’s facility at Caen, France, which was damaged by a fire in December 2003. The focus of the research will be on integrating communications components - both passive and active - on a silicon substrate.
The money for the grant will be stumped up by a number of French state bodies, including the French Ministry for Economic Affairs Finance and Industry, the Delegation for Territorial Planning and Regional Action and the Lower Normandy Regional Council. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) will also provide a portion of the funding.
According to the French authorities, the research project will create "hundreds" of new jobs and safeguard a further 210 positions that would have been lost as a result of the fire that destroyed the Caen facility’s production line. State funding for the project has just been approved by the European Commission.