The cooperation of Fraunhofer ENAS and the Center for Microtechnologies with the Tohoku University Sendai in Japan is a very successful one. The principal investigator Prof. Thomas Gessner got a own WPI research group belonging to the big complex material and system integration within the WPI Advanced Institute for Material Research. The group is managed by Prof. Yu-Ching Lin since November 2008. Focus of the research is smart systems integration of MEMS/NEMS, especially the integration of heat generating materials for wafer bonding, the CMOS-MEMS integration and the fabrication of nano structures using self organizing and self assembling.

Within the international graduate school "Materials and Concepts for Advanced Interconnects" work engineers specialised in electrical engineering and micro electronics, material sciences as well as physicists and chemists together on the development of new materials and processes as well as new concepts for interconnect systems in integrated circuits. The project makes essential contributions not only to the solution of problems of nano electronics. It supports and requests an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural communication and cooperation. Participants at this projects are the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Chemistry and the Center for Microtechnologies of the Chemnitz University of Technology as well as the Technical University Berlin, the Fudan University Shanghai, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Fraunhofer Institute for Microintegration and Reliability IZM and the Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS.

Together with its French partners of the University of Grenoble and the CEA-LETI, the department of Advanced System Engineering develops a know-how in the area of low cost wireless smart sensor systems (like SAW-detectors). One other aspect of the European engagement of the ASE with the Ecole des Mines in Gardanne and the University of Leuven is driven around the development of an innovative Near-Filed Scanner.