Researchers reimagine microelectronics with cutting-edge materials and AI to create energy-efficient systems that could transform computing, sensing, and scientific discovery worldwide.
The microelectronics behind much modern technology help run computers, medical devices, and state-of-the-art instruments that power scientific discoveries around the globe, day and night. However, all that technology consumes energy, and adding artificial intelligence dramatically increases our energy needs. Some experts caution that this pace of energy usage is unsustainable.
To tackle this challenge, the Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $179 million for three Microelectronics Science Research Centers that bring together multi-institutional, multidisciplinary projects in partnership with industry. The centers are organized around making microelectronics more energy efficient and able to operate better in extreme environments.
The DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will lead two projects in the Microelectronics Energy Efficiency Research Center for Advanced Technologies (MEERCAT). The lab will also partner in projects for the Extreme Lithography & Materials Innovation Center (ELMIC) and Co-design & Heterogeneous Integration for Microelectronics in Extreme Environments (CHIME) center.
"Advancements in microelectronics are critical to furthering scientific discovery," said Harriet Kung, DOE Office of Science Deputy Director for Science Programs. "The innovations that come from these research centers will improve our daily lives and drive forward U.S. leadership in science and technology."
Reimagining microelectronics for energy efficiency
Existing methods for shrinking devices are approaching their limits, so researchers must find a fresh approach to microelectronics that balances demands for more computing power and handling more data while reducing energy consumption. To address these challenges, MEERCAT is poised to innovate the design and discovery of new materials, devices, and systems architectures for microelectronics, pushing the limits of current computing and sensing capabilities, which are critical areas for the DOE scientific mission.
The center will host Enabling Science for Transformative Energy-Efficient Microelectronics (ESTEEM), a project led by Paul McIntyre, SLAC associate lab director for the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. The team includes partners from Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of Texas, San Antonio. The team will concentrate on advancing new methods for manufacturing, metrology, design, and simulation of energy-efficient microelectronics, including the discovery of nanostructured materials, new device architectures, and software-hardware integration.
In their quest, researchers are "finding ways to vertically stack devices through new manufacturing methods," said McIntyre, and looking to the human brain for inspiration. For example, the team will integrate several functions into the same component or device instead of improving the current computer hardware configuration, where data is shuttled back and forth through relatively long wires connecting separate logic and memory chips.
"The brain is a very energy-efficient system compared to a silicon-based computer," said McIntyre.
Implementing these ideas will require an "atoms-to-algorithms strategy" to control physical processes across wide-ranging distances and time scales and map them to software. To optimize these efforts, the team will work on all of these areas simultaneously—an approach called co-design. SLAC brings its world-leading X-ray and ultrafast instruments and cryogenic electron microscopes to this challenge, as well as its expertise in materials science and device design.
Wrangling a deluge of data
State-of-the-art instruments across the DOE national laboratories speed scientific discovery and generate massive amounts of data at blazing speeds. Conventional methods of saving data and then analyzing it on a computer will no longer be sufficient, so researchers are turning to extracting useful information in real time by reimagining many aspects of the data collection and analysis process of sensing systems – networks of sensors that detect and measure environmental phenomena.
Also, part of MEERCAT, the Adaptive Ultra-Fast Energy-Efficient Intelligent Sensing Technologies (AUREIS) project, led by Angelo Dragone, SLAC deputy associate lab director in the Technology Innovation Directorate, will focus on redesigning the sensing systems to intelligently process and analyze the raw data as close to the sensor as possible, reducing the amount of data that arrives to the computer. Through co-design, the team, composed of researchers from across SLAC and collaborators from six other national laboratories and universities, will explore new materials, computing architectures, AI and machine learning algorithms, and fabrication processes to develop adaptive, ultrafast, intelligent, and energy-efficient sensing technologies.
"We have long-standing expertise and capabilities at the lab in developing detectors for X-ray science and high energy physics," said Dragone. "At the same time, we leverage AI and machine learning to support complex workflows and edge computing."
Between SLAC and the partner institutions, the AUREIS team will have access to world-class facilities for the design, fabrication, and characterization of sensors and circuits, for example, the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and Stanford Nano Shared Facilities; the SLAC Shared Science Data Facility; and the design, assembly, and test facilities within the SLAC Instrumentation Division.
Other project partners include researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and GE Vernova.
Targeting microelectronics in extreme environments
Making and operating microelectronics devices can involve extremely cold, high radiation, and high magnetic field environments. SLAC's work on scientific instruments for high-energy physics experiments, quantum sensing, and ultrafast X-ray science brings unique expertise in designing semiconductors, microelectronics circuits, and systems to work in such extreme environments.
The ELMIC aims to integrate new materials and processes for future microelectronics. It will focus on areas such as plasma-based nanofabrication, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) sources, and new materials systems that are just a few atoms or molecules thick, known as two-dimensional materials.
Siegfried Glenzer, director of SLAC's High Energy Density Science division, will partner in the High Conversion Efficiency 2 um (micrometer) Laser-Driven Sources for EUV Lithography and Plasma Science project, led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The team is working on a novel plasma source that can emit light in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength to make chips more energy efficient. The project will use SLAC's advanced technology in target systems, which helps with alignment and measurements, and its expertise in laser-plasma interactions.
Meanwhile, CHIME will bring together projects that optimize and advance next-generation technologies from the atomic scale to the fully integrated instrument for use in challenging environments.
Within CHIME, Technology Innovation Directorate staff scientist Lorenzo Rota is partnering in the Fermilab-led Single Photon Detectors Integrated with Cryogenic Electronics (SPICE) project, which aims to develop advanced devices for detecting fundamental particles, shedding light on how the universe works. The SPICE team will focus on co-designing and integrating new materials, sensors, and circuits operating at extremely cold temperatures to facilitate these cutting-edge experiments. The project will draw upon SLAC's extensive experience designing essential components in these detectors, called image sensors, and designing and developing X-ray detectors for scientific exploration.
"The DOE centers address our growing energy needs by driving fundamental research for developing novel and advanced microelectronics technologies," said John Sarrao, laboratory director. "We are grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with our partners in the microelectronics ecosystem through this innovative co-design approach."
The Microelectronics Science Research Centers are funded by the DOE Office of Science. SSRL and LCLS are DOE Office of Science user facilities.