Though until now the nation's achievements in this part of the world have been limited in number, this seems to be about to change. Their comeback may have been a long time coming, but the Greeks are once again looking to prove themselves as true innovators. Over the last few years major US OEMs - such as General Electric and Motorola - have set up operations in the region, with leading semiconductor suppliers - including Broadcom and Atmel - also opening design centres there. Atmel's Greek operation was established in 1999, acting as the main hub for the company's WLAN and Wireless VoIP development. "Greece has a great deal of expatriate engineering talent keen to return to their homeland, but until recent times there was no opportunity to do so," states Yannis Bournakas, R&D manager. "Now we have a more favourable commercial environment that can draw people back, as well as keeping hold of the new graduates coming through. Government subsidies targeting high tech can help international firms interested in establishing sites here, as well as entrepreneurs looking to start their own businesses." He continues, "The Greek workforce has a strong sense of loyalty. The low staff turnover means development road maps for new products don't get affected."The Hellenic Centre for Investment is responsible for bringing foreign money into Greek industry. John Anastasopoulos, the Centre's chairman, feels "radical economic and infrastructure changes have strengthened Greece's image and made it an attractive location for VC money in the last few years. We offer competitive human resources, access to EU markets, and advanced R&D support."Greece's Institute of Microelectronics (IMEL) is a government-funded research organisation working in such varied fields as VLSI design, image processing, and IC prototyping. Drawing on high-level expertise as well as modern equipment and facilities, it has been able to create leading-edge ASIC, sensor, and actuator devices. Its major g goal is to significantly contribute to the technological development of the Greek nation, encourage the transfer of microelectronics know-how with the rest of the world, offer a favourable environment for the spin-out of new firms, and thus help place Greece on the high-tech map. President of HSIA (Hellenic Semiconductor Association) Theodoros Varelas believes Greece has a lot to offer the high-tech industry in comparison to both established nations and emerging low-cost ones in Eastern Europe or the Far East. "It is vital to be aware of the changing playing field, and the huge competition out there," he states. "Greece is keen to build on human capital, rather than simply promoting cheap manufacturing. Thousands of EE graduates leave our universities yearly, so there is no shortage of ability. Our relatively low cost of living and well-educated workforce place us at the optimum price-performance point."Varelas sees a number of areas for specialisation. "We have lots of expertise in wireless, with firms developing DVB-H, WiMAX and WiFi products. Both Ericsson and Nokia now have R&D sites here." Helic designs chips are targeted at enabling mobile devices to roam seamlessly between different wireless networks. Its PolyRadio solution allows integration of multiple wireless transceivers on a single piece of silicon. This means that multi-mode combinations of a broad spectrum of different standards, such as various versions of 802.11 and UMTS, can be supported. In a similar fashion, Theta Microelectronics creates RF transceivers which can deal with worldwide configurable channel frequencies and protocols in a «one-size-fits-all" chip. Its WLAN solution supports 802.11a/g/h and emerging 802.11j standards, as well as Hiperlan2. A total of 38 channels are available when the narrow 2.4GHz band is combined with the wide 5.85GHz band. The chip dynamically adapts each circuit's performance function to instantaneous operating requirements, thereby optimising power utilisation and maximising signal. Sciensis offers SoCs for adaptive frequency-domain-channel equalisation and MIMO systems, while Athens-based inAccess develops broadband-access platforms which converge data, voice, and video.In Varelas' opinion, "The Greek people don't lack entrepreneurial spirit; there is plenty of motivation for engineers to go out and create new companies. We just need to ensure there is a stable, responsive environment, with a good flow of capital and strong level government involvement to support this." There is little doubt that Greece was the alpha of our technological advance, but perhaps it will also be the omega.