Canada has launched the National Microelectronics and Photonics Testing Collaboratory, a $23 million virtual laboratory that uses the Internet to link Canadian researchers and graduate students to complex equipment for testing and validating high-performance microchip designs. By enabling researchers to verify concepts more rapidly, the initiative will expedite the movement of new technologies into the microsystem and photonics marketplace.

Laboratories at McGill and Queen's Universities and the Universities of Toronto and Manitoba will facilitate on-site and remote access to equipment for testing radio-frequency components, system-on-chip technology, and mixed-signal and light-based systems.