Workshop on Future of Semiconductors and Beyond: Devices and Technologies: To Be Held Virtually Feb 8-9, and 17-18, 2021.

Proposal Number: ECCS-2111191 Principal Investigator: Kang L. Wang (PI) & Subramanian Iyer (co-PI) Institution: University of California, Los Angeles Proposal Title: NSF Workshop on Future of Semiconductor and Beyond: Devices and Technologies Non-Technical Abstract:

The U.S. created the semiconductor microelectronics industry through transformative innovations in science and engineering over the past century. However, our leadership advantage has severely eroded over the past two decades amid the stiffest global competition never been experienced before. The goal of the proposed “NSF Workshop on Future of Semiconductors and Beyond: Devices & Technologies” is to research and identify the challenges in semiconductor innovation and manufacturing ecosystems, infrastructure, and workforce, which need to be overcome for fostering innovation to create a “new Silicon Valley”, which will ensure the U.S. economic prosperity and national security.

Several follow-up workshops on these identified directions will be formulated to detail the strategies. The results will produce a set of recommendations to NSF for supporting the new ecosystems of innovation in research, infrastructures, manufacturing, and education and training in semiconductors; and incubate the entire chain of comprehensive talent necessary from research and development to manufacturing and commercialization.

Technical Abstract:

The workshop will recommend research strategy to identify and formulate the scientific and technical directions to assure the US leadership in semiconductors. The workshop approach is to include the top leaders of all stakeholders to discuss ideas and formulate strategic directions for innovation in broader areas of semiconductors, including devices, materials, semiconductor technologies and manufacturing, integrated circuits, and systems and architectures, design methodologies and platform, heterogeneous integration, and semiconductor fabrication, metrology and characterization equipment research and development comprising the full chain of innovation in microelectronics.

Intellectual merits will include the knowledge learned, vertically, in computing, communications, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IOT), future manufacturing, and others, as well as, horizontally, in health care, transportations, energy, security, and the industries of future. The knowledge learned will also help the development of the entire future semiconductor sector and will have broader impacts on science and engineering that affect the daily life.

This workshop aims to identify the critical strategies to help the U.S. to regain the leadership position in semiconductors, which is vital to the socio-economic prosperity and national security.

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.