Argonne hosts MEERCAT meeting on energy-efficient microelectronics
Microelectronics underpin modern life, enabling everything from smartphones and vehicles to the electric grid that keeps our homes running. But as these technologies grow more complex, they’re also hitting some serious limits. Fundamentally new approaches are needed — ranging from artificial intelligence–guided design and advanced materials at the atomic scale to improved methods for measuring and comparing device performance.
That’s where MEERCAT comes in.
Launched in 2025, MEERCAT (short for the Microelectronics Energy Efficiency Research Center for Advanced Technologies) is one of three research centers funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to rethink how microelectronics are designed and built. Its mission is to accelerate breakthroughs that could make future technologies faster, smaller and far more energy efficient.
Over the past year, MEERCAT researchers from six DOE national laboratories — Argonne, Brookhaven, Berkeley, Pacific Northwest, Sandia, and SLAC — have explored innovations in new materials and devices, system architectures, and end-to-end co-design. On April 8–9, 2026, they gathered at Argonne National Laboratory for MEERCAT’s first all-hands meeting, sharing progress, forming working groups and exploring how to push their work even further.
In opening remarks, Hal Finkel, associate director for Advanced Scientific Computing Research at the DOE Office of Science, highlighted MEERCAT’s role in the Genesis Mission, an initiative focused on accelerating research in energy, national security and scientific discovery.
The meeting featured presentations from the eight MEERCAT projects, covering topics such as intelligent sensors, neuromorphic computing architectures, molecular-scale memory devices, end-to-end co-design, and nanoscale materials design.
“Our intention with these presentations was to provide everyone with a better understanding of the different research activities of the eight projects,” said Paul McIntyre, associate laboratory director at SLAC and current MEERCAT co-chair. “We envisioned that people would see commonalities and opportunities for potential collaboration.”
A central focus of the meeting was fostering such collaboration across projects. Following the presentations, participants were organized into four cross-cutting working groups addressing materials and device development; heterogeneous integration and characterization; advanced computing and intelligent sensing; and workforce development and technology commercialization.
“Rapid progress in microelectronics will require collaboration among projects,” said Valerie Taylor, director of the Mathematics and Computer Science division at Argonne and current MEERCAT co-chair. “As participants in each group started comparing ideas, one could feel the interest and excitement rising — and ideas flowing about plans for the next six to eighteen months.”
Reports from the groups highlighted several key priorities for accelerating progress. These included improving access to shared data, tools and facilities; developing a comprehensive database of MEERCAT capabilities and results; establishing clear and consistent metrics for energy efficiency; and strengthening collaboration across research teams and with industry partners.
Participants also emphasized the importance of rapid prototyping to reduce risk and speed innovation, as well as the need for closer, two-way engagement with industry to better align research with practical applications.
Two roundtable discussions further explored technology transfer and external partnerships. In the first roundtable, Jeff Nelson, director of Integrated Technologies at Sandia National Laboratories, described the importance of MEERCAT’s Industry Advisory Council in bridging research innovations with a broader understanding of industry needs. He also emphasized the value of “people transfer” — through interns and predoctoral student — to propagate information across organizations and enable sustainable technology transfer.
The second roundtable focused on opportunities to collaborate with national initiatives such as the CHIPS program, Microelectronics Commons, and the National Science Foundation Chip Design Hub. Each of these initiatives provides opportunities for expanding MEERCAT chip design capabilities and accelerating prototyping efforts for more rapid technology transfer.
The meeting underscored both the progress achieved and the challenges ahead in advancing energy-efficient microelectronics. Looking forward, MEERCAT leaders plan to expand collaboration through new subcommittees focused on research coordination, communication, industry engagement and data infrastructure. Additional workshops are in development, alongside efforts to build a comprehensive shared database of tools and capabilities.
The meeting concluded with a transition of MEERCAT leadership to new co-chairs Maurice Garcia-Sciveres of Berkeley national lab and Jeff Nelson of Sandia.
“These are ambitious efforts,” Taylor said. “But by working together, we can accelerate discovery and help transform the future of energy-efficient microelectronics.”
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.