Description The EUROPRACTICE IC Service brings ASIC design and manufacturing capability within the technical and financial reach of any company that wishes to use ASICs.EUROPRACTICE offers low cost prototyping fabrication for the IC and MEMS designs developed by the European universities and research institutes. Through EUROPRACTICE they have access to the most advanced IC technologies (90nm (2008), 65nm (2009) – 40nm scheduled for 2010) from the most renowned foundries in the world like TSMC (the foundry nr.1) and UMC (the  foundry nr.2). It is important that students are trained in technologies from these foundries as the majority of fabless companies and design houses in Europe are making use of these technologies in their IC design for future products. Additionally EUROPRACTICE is offering, on a fully end-user funded basis, access to prototyping and initial volume fabrication to more than 150 fabless companies, startups and small companies in Europe. Through the funding by the EC in the frame of the EUROPRACTICE project it has been possible to reduce the prices of prototyping for European academia in the most advanced technologies to acceptable levels that academia can afford (mini@sic concept + funding). As such the universities and research centers can have small IC and MEMS designs prototyped at pricing levels of 1000 € for 0.35μ-like CMOS to 7,000 € for advanced 90nm CMOS mixed-signal RF technologies. When it comes to innovation as one of the pillars to stimulate the economy and compete with the new growing Far-East economy such as China (where they buy most modern equipment), it is absolutely a must that the students are well-educated in most modern IC design flows and technologies. From discussions with top leading European Academia it is absolutely necessary that they have access to the most advanced technologies such as 65nm and 40nm CMOS for their research and paper presentations on world-class conferences such as ESSCIRC in Europe and ISSCC in USA.