A consortium of semiconductor manufacturers will help finance a new research center on nanotechnology being established by the University of Notre Dame. The university will finance about two-thirds of the $61-million start-up cost, with $5-million expected from the Semiconductor Research Corp. and IBM.

The new center—called the Midwest Academy for Nanoelectronics and Architectures, or MANA—will be a joint effort with Purdue University and other research universities outside of Indiana. Researchers want to use nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms, to develop faster, more powerful computers.

The consortium, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, described the Notre Dame project as the fourth it has sponsored on a university campus. The most recent project before this one was at the State University of New York at Albany, which made a big splash in 2002 when Sematech, an affiliate of the consortium, pledged $193-million over five years for the university’s fledgling center. But that payday came after New York State had provided seed money in 2001 to start the center.

Notre Dame and state officials in Indiana are eager to try to replicate the Albany model, as well as to generate the kinds of new jobs and businesses that Albany’s project has helped to create. The State of Indiana will provide the Indiana center with up to $15-million.

The semiconductor consortium had solicited proposals for the center last fall and received about 30 applications, the Associated Press reported.

Notre Dame started a Center for Nano Science and Technology in 1999 and is completing a new engineering building, where the new research effort will be based. Purdue is expected to carry out about a third of the center’s research. The center will initially involve a total of 20 faculty members from all participating universities. —Jeffrey Brainard