Research
ASCENT focuses on the demonstration of foundational materials synthesis routes and device technologies, novel heterogeneous integration schemes (package and monolithic) to support the next era of “hyper-scaling”. ASCENT has four Themes that are tightly coupled from materials, devices, packaging and integrated circuit demonstration that support and accelerate new computation models. ASCENT features a cross-Theme benchmarking effort led by center leadership to facilitate materials down-selection, validate projected device metrics with experiments and quantify system level energy-performance-cost-form factor metric for intended applications.
Vertical CMOS
Vertical CMOS addresses the fundamental challenges encountered during implementation of monolithic 3D vertical integrated circuits with multiple interleaved layers of logic and memory when stacked atop each other.
Beyond CMOS
Beyond CMOS tackles fundamental challenges associated with ultimate energy efficiency and ultra-fast switching of spintronic devices. Spins bring in nonvolatility, high speed and infinite endurance, a combination that is rare to find in charge based devices.
Heterogeneous Integration Fabric
Multi-function Heterogeneous Fabric proposes a radical departure from the current roadmap of board level integration of heterogeneous ICs and targets functional diversification of future micro-systems by introducing the HeterogeneoUs faBric (the HUB) where fine-pitch micro-aligned integration of functionally diverse dielets will be enabled on rigid and/or flexible substrates.
Merged-Logic Memory Fabric
Merged Logic-Memory Fabric is a holistic cross-layer design, optimization and implementation effort to create a scalable, high-performance and energy-efficient microsystem that incorporates critical nanotechnology components from Themes 1-3 to accelerate machine learning.