In order to be considered for the grant, companies should be newcomers on the Asic market and their products must be considered as having market potential. They must also fund at least 50 per cent of these projects themselves.
"We are expecting about ten applications. Already, we are in talks with three interested companies," says Mikael Montelius at Svenska Grindmatriser, which is administrating the project together with the research institute Acreo.
Five projects are to receive up to SEK500,000 each. Apart from the Asic production the funding should also cover design tools, training and other relevant costs. To some degree the project results will be made public.
Swedish Fuse is an all-Swedish follow-up to the European project Fuse, short for First User Action, which ended in 1999. However, according to Mikael Montelius the Swedish project is less bureaucratic than the European forerunner. He says:
"All that is needed for an application are things which every project needs to consider anyway, for example a business plan and cost calculations."
Gittan Cedervall