MAScIR joins CERN, one of the largest scientific laboratories in nuclear research in the world.
After several months of discussions with its Digitalization & Microelectronics Smart Devices center, the ATLAS International Collaboration has co-opted the MAScIR Foundation, following a unanimous vote of the 180 member institutes, from 38 different countries. Therefore, MAScIR joins the European Nuclear Research Organization (CERN) as an Associated Technical Institute to contribute to the HGTD (High Granularity Timing Detector) project aimed at improving the performance of the ATLAS detector.
The latter, as well as other detectors placed at different locations of the 27-kilometer-long particle accelerator (LHC: Large Hadron Collider), are located in the border region between France and Switzerland. The LHC represents the largest and most complex scientific instrument in the world and which notably made it possible to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012. It allows us to explore the fundamental nature of our Universe and the search for dark matter.
Since 1996, CERN has maintained a rich partnership with the Moroccan Network for High Energy Physics (RUPHE), supported by the Moroccan Ministry of National Education, Vocational Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research. In this context and in order to strengthen the participation of our country within this European strategic center, in particular through the contribution of Moroccan researchers to its various activities, the MAScIR Foundation will make available to CERN its expertise in the field of microelectronics.
MAScIR’s contribution will go through close collaboration with the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in China, the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, the University of Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz in Germany, the Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies in Spain, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Mohammed Premier University of Oujda, Ibn Tofail University in Kénitra and Hassan II University in Casablanca. This will notably involve participating in the design of microelectronic reading cards meeting very severe constraints in terms of size and resistance to radiation.
MAScIR will also work on the optimization and design of a prototype of the HGTD in order to participate in a part of the assembly of this detector. University researchers, particularly Moroccans among them, will be able to benefit from the expertise of the MAScIR Foundation in terms of applied research, in particular as regards the methods of validation and verification of electronic systems intended to ensure the smooth running of experiments during the operation of the LHC collider.
MAScIR will thus be one of the six sites chosen for the production and quality control of 16% of the overall volume of the HGTD project, in its final phase.
It should be noted that MAScIR foundation has already been selected at the start of the year by CERN, as part of another atlas project aimed at developing a microelectronic solution, the work of which is still ongoing. This new collaboration leads to a greater partnership with CERN allowing the Foundation to get a unique opportunity to contribute to various projects carried out by this international nuclear research center.
MAScIR is a research center related to Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, having the status of a foundation that aims to promote and develop in Morocco research and development poles meeting the needs of the country in advanced technologies, in particular in the medical biology sector.
By virtue of its vocation and ambition to actively support innovation for the benefit of the national economic and industrial fabric and thus contribute to the energy, food and health security of Morocco, the MAScIR Foundation has qualified human resources and equipment at its disposal, state-of-the-art technology, which has enabled it, in the space of twelve years, to file 180 patents with extensions at the African regional level, produce 650 scientific articles in internationally renowned journals and carry out more than a hundred projects and achievements with national and foreign industrialists, thus showing its maturity and its capacities in scientific research and applied research.
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