LEUVEN IS PERHAPS best known to the general public as the birth place of Stella Artois. Among chipmakers the Belgian city’s biggest claim to fame sits in a squat, black tower not far from the Leuven Institute for Beer Research. Metal banding lends its facade the glittering look of a silicon wafer etched with microcircuitry. Inside, its lower floors hum with the noise of $3bn-worth of some of the most complex equipment humanity has ever devised. The offices above house hundreds of the planet’s keenest semiconductor engineers dreaming up the future of chipmaking.
The tower (pictured) is the headquarters of the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre. IMEC, as it is better known,
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