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Development of the World's first radiation-tolerant, wafer-scale (13 cm square) CMOS imager (Active Pixel Sensor) which presents exciting new potential for medical, scientific and technological imaging with much improved performance and lower life-time costs. This development fully met a Grand Challenge set by EPSRC and the imager, called Dynamite, is being exploited in on-going trials for prostate cancer radiotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital/ICR and for diffraction-enhanced mammography at UCL/Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, and proton therapy imaging with Wellcome Trust support. Dynamite won the IET Innovation Award for Electronics (2012). A spinout company, ISDI Ltd, was formed in 2010 to further custom CMOS imager design and provision. [text removed for publication]
This case study demonstrates both major societal (healthcare) and economic impact through making commercially available new and revolutionary medical diagnostic and therapeutic imaging technology, being delivered directly a new start-up company. It also exemplifiers the entire entrepreneurial pipeline from RC-UK Basic Technology funding to successful company creation.
Medipix-based detectors are the best pixelated X-ray detectors available on the market and are commercialised by PANalytical under the brand name PIXcel. At the core of PIXcel is the Medipix2 chip, which was developed around a photon counting breakthrough conceived by the Medipix collaboration and is unique in its adaptability, high spatial resolution, high dynamic range and low noise. This product is the direct result of an exclusive license and a collaboration agreement between PANalytical and the Medipix collaboration, coordinated by CERN and comprising a further sixteen leading physics research institutes in Europe. The University of Glasgow is the only UK institution to be one of the four founding members of the Medipix1 collaboration.
Professor Holland's group, the Centre for Electronic Imaging (CEI), has a long-established collaboration with UK-based imaging specialist e2v that has enabled the company to grow its business in international space missions and increase competitiveness. The CEI has helped develop e2v's understanding of the processes at work in imaging sensors, and improved image sensor designs and test methodologies. CEI has also studied space radiation damage on the sensors, trained more than 30 engineers in testing of e2v products, and was instrumental in the company's successful £3.8m Regional Growth Fund award in 2012 — funding that will create around 100 jobs by 2016.
Space science and medicine share a fundamental requirement for radiation sensors of the highest possible sensitivity. The development of imaging detectors for major X-ray observatories such as the European XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra provided the impetus for a broad-based, intensive programme of deliberate technology transfer from the Unit's Space Research Centre (SRC) into the life sciences and medicine. The resulting impact now extends far beyond the exploratory provision of prototype sensor technologies for biomedical researchers into the full-scale commercial exploitation of those technologies with industry partners in the UK and Europe and, in three separate cases, to early-stage patient trials. Impact is being delivered in clinical specialisms from oncology to ophthalmology; from neurotoxicology to emergency medicine. The impact delivery mechanisms — the hospital-based Diagnostics Development Unit (DDU) and the campus-based Bioimaging Unit — are themselves novel and have achieved national prominence as examples of best practice in the drive for economic return even from established blue skies research.
The University of Southampton's distinguished body of work on the design of technology for gamma-ray detection and imaging has informed new counter-terrorism practices. Technological advances arising from the research have been crucial to delivering significant benefits in the fields of homeland security and nuclear safety — the latter particularly in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A spin-out company, Symetrica, currently employs 26 people in the UK and the USA, has a forecast turnover of more than £10 million for 2013-14 and has been recognised as an example of best practice. It is a technological leader in the field of radioactive isotope identification.
Radiation physicists at the University of Surrey developed a unique X-ray imaging technology for high-speed real-time tomography (RTT) during 1997 to 2005. The originating research developed new X-ray methods for tomographic imaging of multiphase flow in pipes. RTT was then applied to security X-ray imaging, specifically the high-speed screening of aircraft passenger baggage. As a direct result of the research, a spin-out company from the University, CXR Ltd, was formed, and it was later acquired by Rapiscan Systems.
Surrey's imaging technology is now approved for use for automated explosives detection in the European aviation sector. In 2009, a prototype high-speed baggage system was trialled at Manchester Airport, which resulted in certification in 2012. The research has made a significant economic impact by leading to technology that created jobs in a purpose-built factory.
The development of microelectronic sensor arrays for biological applications, pioneered at the University of Glasgow, is central to a unique gene sequencing system developed by Ion Torrent. The Ion Torrent personal genome machine is a bench-top system that, compared to optically mediated technologies, is cheaper and easier to use. Ion Torrent was founded in 2007 and bought by Life Technologies in 2010 for $725M; they, in turn, were bought by Thermo Fisher for $13Bn, citing Ion Torrent as a motivation. Ion Torrent now has 62% of the bench-top sequencing market, estimated to be worth $1.3Bn in 2012.
The development by Cambridge University staff of compact semiconductor sources and detectors of Terahertz radiation has opened up this part of the electromagnetic spectrum to commercial use for the first time, enabling many applications. In medicine these applications include the analysis of drugs and the detection and imaging of cancer; in security applications the detection and imaging of explosives; and in the semiconductor industry the detection and imaging of buried defects in semiconductor wafers. High power Terahertz lasers are used in gas sensors, for imaging and as local oscillators. This technology has been exploited by a spin-off company TeraView which has 25 employees, has raised £16M in funding, £3.5M since 2008, and has sold 70 imaging systems, half since 2008 at an average cost of $300K each.
Semiconductor wafers are subject to damage from misaligned handling tools, leading to cracks. Most of these are benign, but a few propagate to cause silicon wafer breakage during high temperature processing, leading to losses in production time costing millions of dollars per year. Research in Durham showed that X-ray Diffraction Imaging can be used to identify which cracks will catastrophically fail. As a consequence, Jordan Valley UK Ltd has designed and already sold over £M [text removed for publication] worth of X-ray imaging tools to the semiconductor industry. The company identifies this product as being critical to its continuation, safeguarding more than 25 jobs, and growth over the past 2 years.
Following the 2005 inauguration of the joint Non-Destructive Testing Validation Centre with TWI Ltd at Port Talbot, UWTSD: Swansea Metropolitan established a Knowledge Transfer Centre (KTC) in 2008 with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and UWTSD funding. The role of the KTC is to support Welsh Manufacturing Industry in the conjunction of NDT with Composites Fabrication. With additional funding from the pan-Wales ASTUTE project, two Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarships, two EPSRC/Industry CASE studentships, one in NDT and the other in Composites, the Unit has assisted 46 companies across Wales, undertaken 32 collaborative industrial projects and has created 5 jobs. Investment induced has totalled £282,482 to date and the Unit has established itself as a leading NDT centre of expertise. Industrial engagement includes research and development with leading NDT companies such as TWI Ltd, Silverwing Ltd, Oceaneering Ltd, and manufacturing companies such as Calsonic Kansei Ltd, Tata Steel and United Aerospace Ltd.