Aimed at sustaining U.S. leadership in the global semiconductor industry, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), a consortium of members of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), said they would fund a national university-based research program focused on long-term nanoelectronics exploration.
NSF and NRI said they would each contribute $1 million to support the research. The six NRI industrial participants are AMD, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Intel, Micron Technology and Texas Instruments. NRI will be administered on behalf of the industrial participants by the Nanoelectronics Research Corp. (NERC), a subsidiary of the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC).
This agreement represents the first step of the NRI’s efforts to accelerate nanoelectronics research in U.S. universities, which was first announced last November by SIA. This research is crucial not just to the semiconductor industry, but also to the broader information technology ecosystem, the groups said.
Specifically, the NRI will explore, both independently and in conjunction with government organizations, new approaches in emerging areas of electronics and other quantum variables at the nanoscale level, aimed at discovering new devices that will work with industry-standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology in the year 2020 and beyond.
Dr. Paolo Gargini of Intel will serve as chair and Dr. Hans Stork of TI will serve as vice chair in heading the governing council overseeing NRI’s work. Dr. Hans Coufal of IBM is the director of NERC and will lead the NRI Technical Program Group.
“For the first time, the U.S. government and the U.S. semiconductor industry are collaborating on long-term research on nanoelectronics,” noted Gargini in a statement.
“This is a very big deal over some very small structures. With these tiny nano transistors -- 10 nanometers in size -- we will be able to build 10 billion transistors in the space of a period made by a ballpoint pen,” he explained.
Other members of the governing council are: Dr. Craig Sander from AMD; Betsy Weitzman from Freescale; Dr. John Warlaumount from IBM; and Mark Durcan from Micron. Coordination with SIA and SRC will be handled by Dr. Pushkar Apte of SIA, and Larry Sumney of SRC.
TI’s Stork said, “We believe investments in nanoelectronics are essential to start the engine of the technological revolution of the next decade.”
“The program has already begun the effort to identify and recruit our best and brightest grad and post-doctoral students to help in this effort. It will really make the difference in our future -- as a nation, as an industry and as a profession,” he added.
“The global semiconductor industry is facing a critical technology transition over the next 10 to 15 years,” said SIA president George Scalise.
“The technology leaders of 2020 will be determined by actions taken. The incubation period for new technologies is typically 15 years, making it essential for us to support basic research on nanoelectronics today,” he continued.
The SIA praised the work NSF has done over the past five years through its National Nanotechnology Initiative and believes even more can be accomplished by working together.
“We are in a race for global leadership in Information Technology. Other countries have recognized the critical importance and value of leadership in Information Technology and the role of nanoelectronics in achieving leadership. The United States has the world’s greatest research universities, but to maintain their leadership, we must continue to fund basic research programs at these universities,” Scalise concluded.
