Microelectronics

Over the past 75 years, microelectronic devices have decreased in both size and cost at an astonishing rate. These transformative devices now appear to be at a crossroads. More innovative pathways to significant improvements are needed as further decreases in the size of their basic building blocks, transistors, do not seem possible.

Microelectronics research at Argonne has three elements:

• Discovery science for energy-efficient AI and computing, with reduced use of critical materials
• New approaches to semiconductor manufacturing, spanning chemistry, materials, fabrication and packaging for more efficient and resilient microelectronics
• AI-enabled innovation across the microelectronics stack, from metrology to chip design, to support co-design across materials, devices and architectures

For this research, we are adopting a co-design approach that simultaneously takes into account the interdependencies among materials, devices, architectures, software, and applications. The goal is to transform the process by which we conduct microelectronics research.

Much of the science and technology that will enable advanced microelectronics devices does not exist today. Advances in basic science are needed as a foundation for microelectronics for energy-efficient scientific computing, sensor-based computing, novel AI accelerators, and operation under extreme environments. Argonne’s core capabilities include materials synthesis and characterization, high performance computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, non-destructive nanoscale chip imaging, and distributed sensor platforms. Our success will help revitalize the U.S. microelectronics industry and reduce dependence on overseas supply chains. It will also enable the next generation of high energy physics, nuclear physics, and X-ray detectors.

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