Imagine a device that can help a fireman to go through a smoky building or a sensor that a cardiac patient could use to detect early signs of cardiovascular disease. That's the kind of cutting-edge technology that's being developed in the engineering laboratories at the University of Windsor.
But even though they can design the microchips and then test them after they have been manufactured, they do not have a facility to make them yet.
That is about to change. The university is about to install a new clean room called microfabrication in which sophisticated filtering equipment controls things like dust, temperature and humidity.
These controls are necessary to produce perfect microchips that are so small that even dust particles can render them useless.
Researchers at the Ed Edley Engineering Innovation Center will soon have a new clean room to produce microchips like this one. (Dale Molnar CBC News)
"To make those chips in that small size, you need a special environment where you control the amount of particles you allow in that room. because some of the characteristics are smaller than the size of a particle, "said Jalal Ahamed, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Ahamed is working on micro and nano technology that can be used in a variety of different detection equipment. . Now they have to make microchips in other universities or government facilities, which takes a long time.
"This installation that we are putting together at the University of Windsor will allow them to do everything at home," said Mehrdad Saif, Dean of Engineering.
Saif estimates that the cost of the new clean room will be around $ 1.5 million. The room is empty at this time, but once the equipment is installed and some renovations have been completed, it should be ready next year.
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