Italian chips in with top EU inventor award

THE Italian scientist who co-invented the microchip was named Europe’s top inventor yesterday.

A jury of world experts in a new EU-sponsored competition looked at scientific achievements by European scientists and choose 18 finalists from 11 countries. There were no Irish among those chosen, despite the country being given “average performance” rating in a recent EU study.

The top prize went to Federico Faggin, father of the microchip, an invention that led to the modern computer. He developed it with two colleagues for Intel in the US in February 1971.

The 64-year-old Italian built his first computer in 1960 at age 19 while working with Olivetti in Italy. “I wanted to go deeper, to know more about how things worked,” he said.

He beat two other major figures in science — Karlheinz Brandenburg from Germany, inventor of the MP3 file format and James Dyson from Britain, developer of the vacuum cleaner principle that bears his name.

Most nominations were for teams working in information technology, telecommunications and medicine.

European Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen said the jury’s choice showed there is a good base for leading-edge technology in Europe.

The award is an effort to boost interest in research in the EU, which spends about a third less than the US, resulting in far fewer inventions being registered in the EU than in the US.

Mr Verheugen said such investment is essential to job creation and wealth.

While the gap between the EU and the US has narrowed slightly, China and India are fast becoming centres of research and innovation.

Almost a fifth of the 63,461 European patents registered last year were German, while France and the Netherlands registered around 8,000 each. Ireland had 311 registrations.