Two new research centers created; grants made to six National Science
Foundation nanoscience centers and a Texas research group
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Seeking to accelerate
nanoelectronics research at U.S. universities to benefit the long term needs
of the semiconductor industry, a consortium of companies has announced its
first research grants under the Semiconductor Industry Association's (SIA) new
Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI).
These grants will fund the creation of two new university-based
nanoelectronics research centers -- one in California and the other centered
in New York -- as well as support additional research at five National Science
Foundation (NSF) nanoscience centers and at a research group in Texas. The
announcement was made today at the NSF Headquarters in Arlington, Va., during
the "Silicon Nanoelectronics and Beyond" conference cosponsored by the NSF and
the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC).
The two new research centers are:
- The Western Institute of Nanoelectronics (WIN) in California.
Headquartered at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and
Applied Science, WIN participants will come from three University of
California campuses (Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Barbara) and
Stanford University. WIN will focus on novel spintronics and plasmonic
devices. In addition to its NRI funding, this center will also receive
additional direct support from Intel and the UC Discovery program.
- The Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Exploration (INDEX) in
Albany, N.Y. Headquartered at the College of Nanoscale Science and
Engineering of the State University of New York-Albany (SUNY-Albany) it
will include also the Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard
University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue
University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Yale University. INDEX
will focus on the development of nanomaterial systems; atomic-scale
fabrication technologies; predictive modeling protocols for devices,
subsystems and systems; power dissipation management designs, and
realistic architectural integration schemes for realizing novel magnetic
and molecular quantum devices. INDEX will also receive additional
direct funding from IBM, and support from New York State is expected.
The industry consortium (an SRC subsidiary known as the Nanoelectronics
Research Corp. (NERC)) and NSF also announced today a total of $2 million in
supplemental grants for nanoelectronics research during Fiscal Year 2006 at
five existing NSF nanoscience centers:
- Network for Computational Nanotechnology at Purdue University,
- Center for Nanoscopic Materials at the University of Virginia,
- Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of
California, Santa Barbara,
- Center for Electronic Transport in Molecular Nanostructures at Columbia
University, and
- Center for Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications at Harvard
University.
In addition, NERC announced an individual grant to the research team led
by Professor Banerjee at the University of Texas at Austin for exploratory
work in spintronics, and NSF announced an additional supplemental grant for
nanoelectronics research to the Center for Semiconductor Physics in
Nanostructures at the University of Oklahoma/University of Arkansas.
The companies participating in NRI (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.;
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.; International Business Machines Corp.; Intel
Corp.; Micron Technology, Inc.; and Texas Instruments, Inc.) will assign
researchers to collaborate with the university teams. Strong interactions
between these centers and their activities will be instrumental in NRI
reaching its 15-year goal of demonstrating novel computing devices with
critical dimensions below 10 nanometers and incorporating them in simple
computer circuits.
Larry Sumney, President and CEO of SRC said, "The research results from
this new initiative will enable the semiconductor industry to extend Moore's
Law -- the 40-year-old prediction that the industry can double the amount of
transistors it places on a computer chip every couple of years -- far beyond
the year 2020 when the potential limits of the current industry technology may
be approached."
Lawrence Goldberg, Senior Engineering Advisor at NSF said, "The
supplemental grants will support additional graduate students and postdoctoral
fellows in the Centers' research programs, thus leveraging NSF's significant
fundamental research investments in nanoelectronics. We believe this type of
cooperative effort with NRI can have a large impact in accelerating
advancement of new concepts and in developing future cadres of industry and
faculty researchers to help drive the field."
About the SIA:
The SIA is the leading voice for the semiconductor industry and has
represented U.S. semiconductor companies since 1977. Collectively, the chip
industry employs a domestic workforce of 225,000 people. More information
about the SIA can be found at http://www.sia-online.org.
About the SRC:
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), based in Research Triangle Park,
N.C., operates globally to provide competitive advantage to its member
companies as the world's premier university research management consortium
delivering relevantly educated technical talent and early research results.
Learn more about SRC at http://www.src.org.
About the NRI:
In August 2005, a consortium of six Semiconductor Industry Association
(SIA) member companies chartered an SRC subsidiary, the Nanoelectronics
Research Corp., to develop and administer a university-based research program
to explore new areas in nanoscale electronics that are emerging as the
ultimate limits to the scaling of today's dominant microelectronic technology
(Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)) are being approached. The
goal of this research program -- the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative -- is
to demonstrate novel computing devices with critical dimensions below 10
nanometers and to incorporate them into simple computer circuits that could
enable the industry to extend Moore's Law improvements in electronics far
beyond the limits of CMOS. More information about NRI is available at
http://www.src.org/nri.
About the NSF:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency
that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science
and engineering. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000
universities and institutions. Visit the NSF web site at http://www.nsf.gov.
NSF Center web sites, for reference:
- Network for Computational Nanotechnology at Purdue University --
http://www.ncn.purdue.edu/
- Center for Nanoscopic Materials at the University of Virginia --
http://www.mrsec.virginia.edu/
- Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of
California at Santa Barbara -- http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/
- Center for Electronic Transport in Molecular Nanostructures at Columbia
University -- http://www.cise.columbia.edu/NSEC/
- Center for Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications at
Harvard University -- http://www.nsec.harvard.edu/
- Center for Semiconductor Physics in Nanostructures at the University of
Oklahoma/University of Arkansas -- http://www.nhn.ou.edu/cspin/
FYI .... State Funding Source websites, for reference:
- California UC Discovery program
http://uc-industry.berkeley.edu/welcome2.asp
- New York State NYSTAR program http://www.nystar.state.ny.us/
SOURCE Semiconductor Research Corporation
 back to top
Related links:
http://www.src.org
http://www.sia-online.org http://www.src.org/nri
http://www.nsf.gov
CONTACT:
Lisa Green of the Semiconductor Research
Corporation, +1-919-941-9469, or Lisa.Green@src.org
|
