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The world's leading chipmaker, Intel, is to establish an R&D centre in Spain with the aim of developing faster and more efficient microprocessors.
Intel said on Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona that will see UPC operate a research centre, Intel Labs Barcelona, on behalf of the chipmaker. The centre will be opened later this year. Intel declined to discuss how much it was investing in the centre.
According to both parties, the centre will be home to Intel's microprocessor researchers, as well as researchers from UPC's Computer Architecture Department. The two groups will collaborate on research into advanced microprocessor technologies for future Intel Itanium processor and Intel Pentium processor family designs. Research and development efforts will focus on increasing processor performance, reducing power consumption and extending battery life.
"Relationships with leading international universities expose Intel to ground-breaking R&D occurring throughout the world and gives us access to top researchers on a global scale," said Intel's vice president and chief technology officer, Patrick Gelsinger in a statement. "UPC has a group of highly talented researchers -- renowned experts in their field -- who have a track record in leading-edge microarchitectural research."
Maria Marced, Intel's vice president, sales and marketing group, and general manager, EMEA, said that the investment in UPC would give the company "unprecedented access to the best ideas Europe has to offer."
The Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya is one of the largest technical universities in Spain with approximately 30,000 undergraduates. Its dedicated Computer Architecture Department, with about 70 full-time faculty members focusing on computer engineering and telecommunications engineering, performs research in areas ranging from VLSI Systems Design to Processor Microarchitecture and Code Generation.
Intel has been funding university research since 1980. Intel currently oversees and supports research projects in more than 75 universities around the world. Typically, the company adopts a technology in its own research labs only after it has been proven by university research.
The center will be led by three professors from UPC: Antonio Gonzalez, who has been a microarchitecture researcher for more than 16 years, and Roger Espasa and Toni Juan, experts on 64-bit processors.
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