NSF Convergence Accelerator Track I: Energy-efficient MetaConductors for Convergence of Sustainable Electronics (E-MC2 of Sustainable Electronics)

由于数十年来国内制造能力的缺乏和供应链的不平等，美国面临着半导体芯片和电子零件的严重短缺。因此，美国电子行业目前处于不可持续的状况，面临着重大的经济和国家安全威胁。这项工作的目标是探索未来社会可持续电子融合的节能元导体（E-MC 2可持续电子），并开发制造技术，将元导体转化为商业用途，以满足现代高速宽带电子应用的信号/电源完整性要求。E-MC 2可持续电子将在可制造元导体技术领域产生多个关键的知识产权领域，使美国成为技术和加速技术转让的领导者，以启动初创企业和行业采用，从而促进经济增长和创造就业机会。多学科和多机构团队将利用其以前的合作，新联盟的新见解以及工程教育的集体经验。包容性教育活动的成果将是在半导体制造和相关领域的多元化，训练有素，全球竞争力的劳动力。该小组与一个宣传团体的独特合作将有助于在专业会议和期刊出版物等传统场所之外向公众传播知识。《2022年半导体生产和科学法案》（CHIPS法案）旨在促进对国内半导体制造能力的投资，并提高美国的竞争力、创新和国家安全。这对美国电子行业来说是一次及时的干预，因为美国电子行业缺乏本土制造能力和供应链不平等。半导体芯片有两个主要元件：有源器件（晶体管）和连接器件的互连。有源器件材料的进展，如新的二维材料（MoS 2、WS 2、BN等），相变材料和传统的Si、GaAs、GaN、InP已经使高能量效率和存储器/逻辑功能成为可能，以实现系统紧凑性。然而，互连材料仍然严重依赖于固体铜技术，这在降低射频（RF）电阻方面具有重大限制。迫切需要找到高效的导体解决方案，以实现在毫米波频率下运行的高速计算和宽带通信技术。由设计的多个纳米级非铁磁和铁磁金属组成的亚导体已经显示出抑制趋肤效应的希望，从而降低RF电阻和功耗。该项目的目标是探索未来社会可持续电子融合的节能元导体（E-MC 2可持续电子），并开发制造技术，将元导体转化为商业用途，以满足现代高速宽带电子应用的信号/电源完整性需求。这些新的元导体将是独一无二的，提供显著的能源效率，并成为未来高速计算和宽带通信应用中下一代互连和无源技术的游戏规则改变者。该项目利用了研究人员在元导体设计和制造、制造工艺设计、纳米材料和制造以及工程教育和劳动力发展方面的多学科专业知识。通过与当地政府（佛罗里达奥西奥拉县）、学术界（首尔国立大学、韩国能源技术研究所）和私营部门（思科、英特尔、苹果、应用材料、三星和SkyWater）的国内和国际合作，该团队将：设计可持续的元导体，研究其可扩展的制造工艺，并创建和实施综合教育和劳动力发展计划。该项目的影响将是为未来的电子导体提供有效的技术解决方案;能够应对电子系统全球能源挑战的知识渊博和敏捷的劳动力;以及通过初创企业和高技能就业机会创造对经济增长的贡献。该奖项反映了NSF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而被认为值得支持。

Due to a decades-long lack of onshore manufacturing capability and supply chain inequality, the United States (US) suffers from a critical shortage of semiconductor chips and electronic parts. Consequently, the US electronics industry is currently in an unsustainable situation and faces a major economic and national security threat. The goal of this work is to explore Energy-efficient MetaConductors for Convergence of Sustainable Electronics (E-MC2 Sustainable Electronics) for future society and develop manufacturing technologies to translate metaconductors to commercial use to meet the signal/power integrity requirements for modern high-speed, broadband electronic applications. E-MC2 Sustainable Electronics will generate multiple key areas of intellectual property in the manufacturable metaconductor technology space, establishing the US as the leader in both technology and accelerating technology transfer to launch startups and adoption by industry, thus contributing to the growth of the economy and job creation. The multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional team will leverage its previous collaborations, new insights from new alliances, and collective experience in engineering education. The outcome of the inclusive educational activities will be a diverse, well-trained, and globally competent workforce in semiconductor manufacturing and related fields. The team’s unique collaboration with an advocacy group will facilitate dissemination of knowledge to the general public in addition to conventional venues such as professional conferences and journal publications. The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS Act) aims to catalyze investments in domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity and to boost US competitiveness, innovation, and national security. This is a timely intervention for the US electronics industry that suffers from the lack of onshore manufacturing capability and supply chain inequality. A semiconductor chip has two main elements: active devices (transistors) and interconnects connecting devices. Advances in active devices materials, such as new 2-D materials (MoS2, WS2, BN etc.), phase change materials, and conventional Si, GaAs, GaN, InP have made high-energy efficiency and memory/logic functions for system compactness possible. However, interconnect materials still heavily rely on solid copper technology, which has major limitations in lowering radio frequency (RF) resistance. It is imperative to find high-efficiency conductor solutions to enable high-speed computation and broadband communication technologies that operate in the millimeter wave frequencies. Metaconductors consisting of engineered multiple nanoscopic nonferromagnetic and ferromagnetic metals have shown promise in suppressing the skin effect and thus lowering RF resistance and power consumption. The goal of this project is to explore Energy-efficient MetaConductors for Convergence of Sustainable Electronics (E-MC2 Sustainable Electronics) for future society and develop manufacturing technologies to translate the metaconductors to commercial use to meet the signal/power integrity needs for modern high speed, broadband electronic applications. These new metaconductors will be unique, provide significant energy efficiency, and become a game changer for the next generation interconnect and passive technology in tomorrow’s high-speed computing and broadband communications applications. The project harnesses the investigators’ multidisciplinary expertise in metaconductor design and fabrication, process design for manufacturing, nanomaterial and fabrication, and engineering education and workforce development. Through domestic and international collaboration with local government (Osceola County, Florida), academia (Seoul National University, Korea Institute of Energy Technology), and the private sector (Cisco, Intel, Apple, Applied Materials, Samsung, and SkyWater), the team will: design sustainable metaconductors, investigate their scalable manufacturing processes, and create and implement an integrated education and workforce development program. The impact of the project will be an effective technical solution for future electronic conductors; knowledgeable and agile workforce that can rise to global energy challenges in electronic systems; and contribution to the growth of economy via startups and high-skill job creation.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.