Institute – link

The University of Exeter is a research-led top-ten UK and top-100 global university (Times Higher University Rankings) and a member of the UK’s ‘elite’ research-intensive Russell Group.

It is home to one of the largest groups of memory and data storage researchers in the UK. This team is inter-disciplinary, bringing together materials scientists, physicists and electronic engineers from the Departments of Engineering and Physics.

Our memory-related research expertise forms part of the larger ‘Functional Materials’ research theme of the University, which is led by Prof C David Wright and brings together around 40 permanent academic faculty staff and over 120 PhD and post-doctoral researchers working on important materials topics.

The Functional Materials research theme has benefited from around £30 million of university and external investment in new staff and research facilities in the last five years, and has state-of-the-art materials and device fabrication facilities housed in 5 purpose-built clean rooms.

People – link

  • Prof. C. David Wright is Professor of Electronic Engineering at the University of Exeter, and leads the Fun-COMP project.
    Prof. Wright began his career as a Process Engineer at Philips Electronics in the UK, before moving into academia where he held posts at the University of Manchester between 1989 and 1999. In the year 2000 he moved to Exeter to take up an Establishment Chair in Electronic Engineering. His research specialism lies in the area of electronic and optoelectronic/photonic memory and computing materials, devices and systems, with a particular focus on phase-change based systems. He has published over 200 journal and conference papers in these areas.
    Prof Wright also has extensive experience in the management and technical leadership of large and complex projects. For example, he led (was the co-ordinator of) the very recently completed multi-partner (University of Cambridge, IBM Zurich, RWTH-Aachen, ISSP-Sofia) ̴ €4 million, EU FP7 Project CareRAMM (Carbon Resistive Random Access Memory Materials; FP7-NMP-2012-SMALL-6; €3,891,208 budget, €2,641,964 funding; 1/2/2013 to 31/1/2016) which was assessed in its final review as having “fully achieved its objectives and technical goals for the period and even exceeded expectations”. He also led the ̴ €10 million, 52-month, 10-partner, EU FP6 Integrated Project ProTeM (Probe-based Terabyte Memories; FP6-2005-IST-5-34719; €9,627,544 budget, €5,298,510 funding; end date 31/1/2011) which was also achieved the highest rating by the project reviewers who also commented that “the co-ordinator evidenced excellent skills in running a complex research project”. Prof Wright also has similar management experience in terms of running UK-only and UK-international multi-partner projects; e.g. he led the joint Exeter-Bath £1.1 million EPSRC Graphene Engineering project ‘New manufacturable approaches to graphene….’ and the joint ̴ £1 million EPSRC-NSF-DfG project ‘Ultra-fast Mixed-mode phase-change …..’ (partners University of Pennsylvania & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
    Carlota Ruiz De Galarreta Fanjul, a Postdoctoral researcher specialized in mixed-mode (photonic-electronic) applications of phase-change devices. She received a first class Master’s degree in Optical and Imaging technologies from the Complutense University of Madrid, worked on graduating as an optical design engineer for several companies in Spain, before moving to Exeter to obtain her PhD.
  • Santiago García-Cuevas Carrillo, a Postdoctoral Researcher currently involved in the behavioural modeling of the opto-electronic nVN framework. During is PhD he was involved in the design, model and fabrication of phase-change opto-electronic displays. He graduated in Physics at the University of Córdoba, and attained a Master’s degree in Microelectronics in from the University of Sevilla.
  • Emanuele Gemo, who received his Master’s degree in Material Science from the University of Padova. His current research project focuses on the thermal, optical, and phase-change modelling of all-photonic phase-change memory devices.
  • Junchao Song received his PhD from City University London and is working in Fun-COMP on the modelling of integrated phase-change photonic devices and systems