The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), based in Geneva, has the biggest team of scientists in the world trying to analyze dark matter. It can be proved indirectly that dark matter is five times more abundant than visible matter. An 8-inch sensor chip has been co-developed by Infineon and the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

The sensor chips are cheaper than the previous generation; all their components are tolerant of continuous radiation, and they age slower than the older models. The CERN experiment is analyzing the structure of and interaction between elementary particles of matter. Protons are accelerated to the speed of light, and then made to collide to generate new particles. After that, different detectors reconstruct their properties. The two Infineon sensors used in the detectors are ATLAS and CMS. Both are located 100m underground. They operate 24 hours a day and gather data at 400 million units per second. Their total area is about 1000 square meters.

“It will need generations to do the elementary experiments necessary to change our lives. But it cannot be stopped. We didn’t have X-rays without Maria Curie, we didn’t have telephones without Maxwell,” the principal of Infineon said.

Infineon’s sensor has aroused great interest among researchers. The company has been awarded a Houska prize, which is the biggest private sector business research award in Austria.