The EU-backed FED4SAE project aims to help European SMBs speed up their transition to digital technology, boost their competitive advantage, and create jobs. The three-year project, which kicked off in September 2017, is coordinated by Leti and includes fourteen partners from the worlds of research and industry. The project partners will support startups and small to mid-sized businesses with the development of solutions leveraging cyber-physical systems* (CPS).

The first of three calls for projects was issued in mid-November (www.FED4SAE.eu). Around 30 of the best projects submitted by SMBs will be selected based on their innovation potential, the maturity of the target solution, and how well the project matches the project partners' technology portfolios and technical know-how.

FED4SAE will also focus on innovation support and management. For example, participating companies will benefit from introductions to potential suppliers and investors. The overriding objective of each project will be to reach the prototyping and proof-of-concept stages so that participating companies come away with complete solutions ready to scale-up for manufacturing and release on the market.

*Cyber-physical systems (CPS) link the physical world (by using sensors and switches, for example) to the virtual world (information processing). Integrated networks and systems supervise and control physical processes with retroactive loops in which the physical processes affect information processing and vice-versa.