VESTAL — New York expects organizations that hold the designation of New York State Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) to be “actively involved” with the effort to improve the state’s economy.

That’s according to Daryl Santos, director of Binghamton University’s Integrated Electronics Engineering Center (IEEC). Santos is also a professor of systems science and industrial engineering.

The IEEC contends it has produced an economic impact exceeding $1 billion, based on feedback from its partner companies dating back to 1994.

The center’s work has again paid off.

Empire State Development’s (ESD) Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation (NYSTAR) extended the IEEC’s designation for an additional 10-year term, Binghamton University said in a news release issued Sept. 30.

As a result of the re-designation, NYSTAR will provide the IEEC nearly $10 million in funding over the next decade. It represents IEEC’s second renewal as a CAT. 

Santos says he was “extremely elated to learn about it.” 

“We knew we had a very strong history of positive impact [on] local industry,” he says, noting the IEEC also works with companies outside New York as well.

He spoke with CNYBJ on Oct. 9.

Founded in 1991, the state has classified the IEEC as a CAT since the mid-1990s, the school said. 

Since its founding, the IEEC has provided a more than 60-to-1 return on investment for New York, the university stipulates.

Annual reports

To maintain the designation and to prove it’s worthy of the state funding, the IEEC assembles an “extensive” annual report, says Santos.

The organization contacts its industrial partners and requests they submit a letter 

“What this letter asks them to do is to make an assessment on how our relationship … has benefitted them,” he says.

The IEEC asks the partners to report the numbers of jobs that they may have created or retained as a result of working with the Center.

The benefit could also be tied to cost savings, he says.

“For example, maybe we helped them to identify and fix a reliability problem and that may have gone into some savings for them.”

The annual reports indicate IEEC and its partners have generated more than $1 billion in statewide economic activity, says Santos. The figure is compiled from reports submitted between 1994 and 2014, which are the latest figures available, the school said. 

Partner companies attribute the “creation and retention of 1,890 jobs” to activity that Binghamton’s CAT has generated.

The IEEC is part of Binghamton University’s New York-designated Center of Excellence (COE) in small-scale systems integration and packaging (S3IP). It pursues research in electronics packaging in partnership with private industry. 

The research that Binghamton University conducts with both large and small industries has led to “significant technological advances” in devices that are “smaller, faster and greener” than their predecessors, the school contends.

Current projects focus on topics such as cybersecurity, three-dimensional (3D) packaging, flexible electronics, power electronics, and batteries.

“We congratulate Binghamton and look forward to IEEC’s continued development of advanced electronics and cybersecurity for years to come,” Howard Zemsky, president, CEO and commissioner of Empire State Development, said in the Binghamton University release.