IUCRC Planning Grant University of Illinois: Center for Aggressive Scaling by Advanced Processes for Electronics and Photonics (ASAP)

电子和光子学先进工艺积极扩展中心（ASAP）将开发用于高效电气互连的新材料和工艺范例，这是先进技术节点下一代计算系统的基础。半导体公司和集成电路供应商正在寻找新的材料来提高计算机的速度和处理能力。此外，在大数据应用中，通过内存和计算节点之间互连的数据传输限制了系统的整体性能。为了解决微电子行业的这些迫切需求，ASAP将建立一个由行业领导者和材料科学，纳米制造，电子和光子器件物理以及电路设计专家指导的材料到系统协同设计研究框架。该中心的研究将有助于使美国半导体行业保持其在先进制造业的技术领先地位。ASAP将努力通过与行业领导者合作，对下一代计算基础设施产生持续而有意义的影响。该中心将加强国家安全、医疗保健、食品安全和运输等领域的实力，在这些领域，电子产品是供应链的关键方面。通过与各种规模的公司合作，该中心为未来的劳动力培训提供了机会，不仅在技术能力方面，而且在领导和创业方面。该中心还将利用自己的机构基础设施和行业基金会来支持ASAP的多样性和包容性目标。其中包括：面向本科生和研究生的微电子女性指导计划，以重新构想微电子领域的未来劳动力；面向本科生的研究体验（REU）计划；以及面向每个人的周六工程论坛。目前，半导体工业面临着新的挑战：(1)寻找用于超薄互连的新型导电和介电材料，这些材料具有较高的热、电和机械可靠性，具有更高的载流能力，并且在纳米尺度上具有更高的电迁移屏障；寻找新的非易失性互补金属氧化物半导体兼容存储器技术，使存储器更接近计算节点；（iii）在宏观尺度上确定新的连接技术，以克服射频（RF）频段的频谱稀缺和带宽限制，因为预计到2024年将有超过800亿台设备连接到互联网。ASAP中心的总体目标是创造知识来推动从材料到设备和架构的基本技术解决方案，以解决与下一代计算平台的互连和内存瓶颈相关的半导体行业需求。ASAP的研究范围包括：(i)用于改进互连导体和线间介电体的材料逆向设计和可靠性感知材料工艺开发的多物理场建模；（ii）用于光学和太赫兹互连的III-V和III-N器件在硅上的可扩展集成；（三）开发非易失性自旋电子学存储器，用于内存计算。材料设计中紧密结合的实验-理论方法、团队成员的跨学科专业知识和实验能力是解决具有挑战性的科学和工业相关问题所必需的。ASAP将努力推进低温、超高宽高比、原位和3D监测以及自组装单片方法的新前沿。风险和可靠性评估将用于评估和预测材料和结构退化，以及电路和系统级性能基准。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Center for Aggressive Scaling by Advanced Processes for Electronics and Photonics (ASAP) will develop new materials and process paradigms for efficient electrical interconnects, which are the foundations for next-generation computing systems at advanced technology nodes. Semiconductor companies and integrated circuits vendors are seeking new materials to improve computer speeds and processing abilities. Additionally, in big data applications, it is the data transport via interconnects between memory and compute nodes that limits the overall system performance. To tackle these urgent needs of the microelectronics industry, ASAP will establish a materials-to-system codesign research framework guided by industry leaders and experts from materials science, nanofabrication, electronic and photonic device physics, and circuit design. The Center's research will help enable the US semiconductor industry to maintain their technological leadership in advanced manufacturing. ASAP will strive to have a sustained and meaningful impact on the next-generation computing infrastructure by partnering with industry leaders. The Center will add strength to areas of national security, healthcare, food security, and transportation where electronics are a key aspect of the supply chain. By engaging with companies of all sizes, the Center fosters opportunities for future workforce training not only in technical competence, but also in leadership and entrepreneurship. The Center will also engage its own institutional infrastructure and industry foundations to support ASAP's diversity and inclusivity goals. These include: a Women in Microelectronics mentoring program for undergraduate and graduate students to reimagine the future workforce in microelectronics, a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, and a Saturday Engineering for Everyone forum.Currently, the semiconductor industry is faced with new challenges: (i) Finding novel conducting and dielectric materials for ultra-thin interconnects that have high thermal, electrical, and mechanical reliability and possess higher current carrying capability along with a higher barrier to electromigration at the nanoscale; (ii) Finding new non-volatile complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible memory technologies to bring memory closer to the compute nodes; and (iii) Identifying new connectivity technology at the macroscale to overcome the spectrum scarcity and bandwidth limitations of the radiofrequency (RF) band as more than 80 billion devices are envisaged to be connected to the internet by 2024. The overall objective of the ASAP Center is to create the knowledge to drive fundamental technology solutions, from materials to devices and architectures, toward addressing the needs of semiconductor industry related to interconnect and memory bottlenecks of next-generation computing platforms. The scope of ASAP research comprises: (i) multiphysics modeling of inverse material design and reliability-aware materials process development for improved interconnect conductors and inter-wire dielectrics; (ii) scalable integration of III-V and III-N devices on silicon for optical and terahertz interconnects; (iii) development of non-volatile spintronics memory for in-memory computing. The tightly coupled experimental-theoretical approach to materials design, the cross-disciplinary expertise of team members, and experimental capabilities are required to tackle challenging scientific and industry-relevant problems. ASAP will strive to advance the new frontier of low temperature, ultra-high aspect ratio, in situ and 3D monitoring, and self-assembled monolithic approaches. The risk and reliability assessment will be carried out to evaluate and predict material and structure degradation, along with circuit- and system-level performance benchmarking.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.