I-Corps: A Dedicated Foundry Service for Emerging Materials

I-Corps：新兴材料的专用代工服务

• 批准号: 2317500
• 负责人: Saptarshi Das
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-15 至 2024-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2317500&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Dedicated; Foundry; Service; Emerging; Corps; Dedicated; Foundry; Service; Emerging

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of advancements in the use of emerging materials for semiconductor manufacturing. The dedicated emerging materials foundry could alleviate the chip shortage concerns which have disproportionately affected small and medium-sized businesses which use chips in their products. There may be four classes of customers: scientists/engineers in the fields of chemistry, biology, etc.; scientists/engineers who grow nanomaterial in their labs; small/medium sized internet of things companies; and semiconductor packaging facilities that are interested in integrating chips with their existing products. For each class, an application-specific chip will be developed which will harness certain unique properties of 2-dimensional materials. The low-to-medium volume production line of the proposed business will enable the flexibility to meet the targeted needs of a large variety of customers who will not be reliant on the rigid tape-out schedules of foundries.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a dedicated emerging materials foundry for producing novel chip designs using unconventional materials with a quick turnaround time. With the continued scaling of transistors in silicon chips, Moore’s law has reached a phase of stagnation. To overcome this challenge, novel semiconductor materials have been used to experimentally demonstrate superior performance in ultra-scaled transistors. Despite their fascinating properties, there has been very little progress in transitioning these state-of-the-art technologies from the lab to the marketplace. As a result, there are hardly any foundries today which manufacture chips based on novel and emerging semiconductors. All this while, the growth of 2-dimensional materials on a large scale, which is crucial in mass producing transistors, has been drastically improved. This is a unique opportunity to commercialize an emerging materials semiconductor foundry at a time when the US wants to regain its leadership in semiconductor and chip manufacturing.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.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是发展新兴材料进行半导体制造的发展。专用的新兴材料铸造厂可以减轻芯片短缺问题，这些问题对使用芯片的中小型企业不成比例。可能有四类的客户：化学，生物学等领域的科学家/工程师；在实验室中种植纳米材料的科学家/工程师；中小型物联网公司；以及有兴趣将芯片与现有产品集成的半导体包装设施。对于每个类别，将开发一个特定于应用程序的芯片，该芯片将利用二维材料的某些独特特性。拟议业务的低到中等体积生产线将使灵活性能够满足各种各样的客户的目标需求，这些客户将不依赖于铸造厂的刚性磁带时间表。该I-Corps项目基于开发专用的新兴材料，用于生产无效材料，该材料使用无效的材料与快速的转换时间生产新颖的芯片设计。随着硅芯片中晶体管的持续扩展，摩尔定律达到了停滞阶段。为了克服这一挑战，新颖的半导体材料已被用来在实验上证明超级晶体管中的出色性能。尽管具有引人入胜的特性，但在将这些最先进的技术从实验室转移到市场方面的进展很少。结果，今天几乎没有任何铸造厂根据新颖和新兴的半导体生产芯片。所有这一切，大规模的二维材料的生长在质量产生晶体管中至关重要，已经大大改善。在美国希望继续在半导体和芯片制造业领导的时候，这是将新兴材料半导体铸造商业化的独特机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识功绩和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估的，并被认为是珍贵的支持。