Academic Microfabrication Facilities serve as a unique national resource by advancing the state of the art in a range of competitive microfabrication technologies. We intend to organize the academic microfabrication communities -- both facilities and users -- to leverage our complementary capabilities to promote and expand our role in advanced technology education and pre-competitive research. This organization will, for example:

1. Provide a forum to exchange expertise and technical knowledge on facilities management, coordinate infrastructure investments to maximize efficiency, and distribute general operational information on a day-to-day basis.
2. Articulate the instrumental role of academic microelectronics research to our industry and society at large, by assuming a proactive position to explain our perspective.
3. Prepare and coordinate responses to new pre-competitive opportunities to identify the shared interests and commonalities of our institutions.
4. Create new opportunities to fulfill our educational mission.
5. Be a continuing organization that identifies and addresses the primary issues of the day, formulates straw man positions, and recognizes that these primary issues change with time.