Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Edited by Time David
In the context of global core shortage, MIT hosted the release of a white paper entitled "Regaining the Leadership Of the United States in the Field of Microelectronics", which is intended to consolidate the global hegemony of the United States in the semiconductor field. The report believes that it is necessary to pay attention to basic research and talent development, and the key to achieving this goal is the university.
In recent years, the ongoing shortage of chips around the world has triggered a series of capacity bottlenecks.
The price of a wide range of consumer goods rises with the "lack of cores", from CPUs to graphics cards, from smart refrigerators to SUVs, highlighting the important role semiconductors play in everyday life.
In fact, long before the new crown pandemic, the United States was already facing a growing chip crisis. In the face of fierce international competition, the long-term leadership of the United States in the field of microelectronics has been eroded.
The CMOS THz-ID chip is shown in the figure
In response to this crisis, MIT organized a large number of experts to write a white paper entitled "Regaining U.S. Leadership in Microelectronics", intending to re-consolidate its hegemony as a global semiconductor superpower.
MIT researchers believe that semiconductor development strategies must be closely linked to universities, which have a unique advantage in pioneering new technologies and cultivating a highly skilled workforce.
"In the national initiative to reinvigorate microelectronics' global leadership, it is clear to us that universities should play a major role." According to Jesús del Alamo, Professor Downer of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT and lead author of the white paper.
When these national programs are established, they can make full use of the huge resources and talents that American universities can bring.
Other collaborators in the report include a number of experts and scholars in related departments of the semiconductor industry, such as the Lincoln Laboratory, the Electronics Research Laboratory, the Microsystems Technology Laboratory, and the Materials Research Laboratory.
The biggest problem: leadership is at stake
Silicon Valley, which was born in the 1950s, originated from the beginning and development of the semiconductor industry in the United States, and also made the United States a leading force in global semiconductor research and manufacturing. But that dominance has been slipping for decades.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, the United States currently produces only 12 percent of the world's semiconductor chips, down from 37 percent in 1990.
One of the reasons for the year-to-year decline in this number is the massive infrastructure investments that countries and regions such as China, South Korea and Taiwan have made over the past few years.
The report's authors say these investments have boosted the development of domestic microchip companies in the United States, and even attracted some American companies to open manufacturing plants overseas.
This scanned electron microscopy shows an NbN superconducting nanowire loop storage unit that includes a hot nanowire cryogenic tube and a nanowire cryogenic tube.
In fact, building a chip factory is like making a bet, and the cost of a chip factory is as high as $10 billion.
However, government incentives, including tax incentives, land incentives and direct subsidies, are affecting the location of factories.
A 2020 report by the Semiconductor Industry Association said that building a chip factory in the United States costs 30% more than building a factory in Asia.
To close that gap, the U.S. has passed the CHIPS Act, which provides $52 billion in national federal investment in domestic semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing.
In addition, Congress is also considering another piece of legislation, the FABS Act, that would include semiconductor industry investment in tax deductions and relief.
Thousands of engineers are needed!
The authors of the white paper point out that the above economic problems are only one of them, and establishing the leadership of American semiconductors will face other problems.
Universities have always been an important base for cultivating talent, and the delivery of labor to the semiconductor manufacturing industry is no exception.
However, more and more students are abandoning "hard technology" and turning to areas such as computer science.
"If we provide more labor, we need to attract more students." According to the authors of the white paper.
The supply of talents is insufficient, and education is facing an uphill battle!
"We don't have enough engineers for the semiconductor industry." The researchers sighed.
Exciting hands-on labs, well-designed internships, support from industry mentors, and various incentive mechanisms, the semiconductor major will engage students with a variety of measures.
College is key
Universities have always played an important role in basic research, and the state relies on university laboratories to generate countless innovations. But the aging infrastructure of universities requires an overhaul.
The white paper authors argue that the United States needs to invest in university infrastructure, including experimental equipment and the people who operate it, as well as the use of experiments for related research activities.
Del Alamo, author of the white paper, believes that the upgrading of experimental equipment is crucial for university research and industrial development, and cutting-edge experimental equipment can carry important research projects, thus promoting the semiconductor industry forward.
One example is the nanofabrication that opened in 2018, which not only makes transistors smaller, it also requires new materials, new processes, new designs and new integrated systems.
"Ten years from now, the technology we will rely on will be completely different from today's, and academic innovation will inevitably disrupt the current technology path and surpass the current system performance." Del Alamo said.
Entrepreneurial activities also play an important role in national technological innovation, and universities have always been incubators for entrepreneurial activities.
Maintain industry-university-research interaction, apply the best research to industrial upgrading, and initiate new technological innovations.
Universities not only need their own research, but also partnerships with other labs to help researchers translate academic innovations into tech startups that will become the world-class enterprises of the future.
Del Alamo said he previously worked with lincoln laboratories to make microchip innovation possible.
Lincoln Lab is a federally funded research institute managed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Lexington, Massachusetts.
"MIT is a world-class engine of innovation, combined with Lincoln Labs' complex microelectronics prototypes, which are unique and powerful." Bob Atkins, director of senior technical divisions at Lincoln Labs, said.
Currently, the portfolio supports the discovery and maturation of disruptive microelectronics technologies and allows for the turning of ideas into reality. It has produced an influential long history, from professional imagers to microelectronic lithography, which has been used all over the world.
A MIT researcher commented: "I am very grateful to my colleagues for publishing the white paper, I completely agree with the ideas in the book, which also stimulated my interest to read and think about how I can contribute as a university teacher and researcher."
Summary of the report
To sum up, this report mainly puts forward several suggestions, covering talent training, research promotion, innovation and entrepreneurship, and academic construction and exchange.
Talent development
Create a national university-industry-government program. Develop widely disseminated educational content and reach outreach programs that attract high school students and first-year college students from diverse backgrounds.
Invest in and support programs to maintain the University's educational facilities. A project-based, design-oriented multidisciplinary educational program designed to develop the hands-on abilities of undergraduate students.
Create a national scholarship and internship program for undergraduate, master's, doctoral and postdoctoral students.
Research advancement
Establish a research program to promote extensive research. From basic research to industrial applications, it is oriented to national security, from single researcher to multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research.
The research program must cover the full cost of the study, including wages, materials, manufacturing costs, etc., and the intellectual property (IP) provisions must equally support all commercial uses.
Innovation and entrepreneurship
Technology development plan. It aims to promote the maturity of technology in an appropriate university environment and subsequent transformation into external foundries, and corporate R&D laboratories.
Establish a research transformation plan. Support the generation and nurturing of microelectronics startups, establish translational research programs, and promote students and postdocs to explore startups.
Academic construction
Make large and sustained investments in university research facilities, with a focus on equipping a small number of people with flexible, production-grade, but research-oriented experimental equipment.
Invest in a new teacher-funded national program that provides flexible career start-up grants for junior teachers and involves industry researchers in university activities.
Resources:
https://scitechdaily.com/mit-lays-out-strategy-to-help-the-u-s-regain-its-place-as-a-semiconductor-superpower/
https://usmicroelectronics.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/microelectronics_white_paper_v13.4.pdf