HISTORY

The history of the Center's cleanroom infrastructure reaches back to the 1980s when TESTAS Inc. built a cleanroom infrastructure for MEMS fabrication with an investment of 40 million USD. In 1998, with the decision of the Privatization High Council, this infrastructure was transferred to METU. Thanks to this infrastructure, studies related to MEMS technology in our country gained momentum, and with the projects and investments, the first steps were taken towards establishing a Center of Excellence with projects and investments in MEMS.

In 2008, the Center was approved as a unit by the Council of Higher Education under the name of METU Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems Research and Application Center. With numerous ongoing studies since 1998, the Center has become a globally recognized center that develops microsystems that can compete head-to-head with their counterparts in the literature and produces high added value in this field.

On August 16, 2017, the Center received its first qualification as an 'Advanced Research Laboratory' for a five-year term and became one of the first four National Research Centers to be qualified under the scope of Law No. 6550 on Supporting Research Infrastructures. Since then, the Center's microfabrication infrastructure has been developed not only with investments from public funds such as the State Planning Organization, the Ministry of National Defense, TUBITAK, the European Union (6th and 7th Framework Program, Horizon 2020), the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, and Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology but also with the investments from private sector R&D projects worth over 70 million USD.

Within the scope of Law No. 6550, The Center received its second five-year qualification on December 6, 2022. While ongoing projects are continuing successfully, the Center continues to apply for new projects in the field of MEMS technology not only to drive the MEMS industry within the country forward but also to gain experience in microfabrication processes to excel further in the market.