Argonne scientists receive funding from the Department of Energy for microelectronics research

Newswise – Argonne scientists Supratik Guha and Valerie Taylor will lead DOE-funded research projects in microelectronics for more efficient computing.

Many of the devices we use every day, such as smartphones and computers, are based on tiny electronic components. This microelectronics has made enormous progress through increasing miniaturization. But the current technology seems to have reached its limits. New approaches are required to meet the growing needs of our information-driven society.

In August 25th, the US Department of Energy (DOE) excellent almost $54 Millions too 10 new projects under the direction of DOEof the national laboratories for increasing energy efficiency in microelectronics Design and production. Scientists Supratik Guha and Valerie Taylor at DOE‘s Argonne National Laboratory will lead two of these projects.

“Technologies that previously swallowed entire buildings now fit in our hands thanks to microelectronics – and now support air conditioning solutions in the areas of electricity, traffic and renewable energies. ”- Energy Minister Jennifer M. Granholm

“Thanks to microelectronics, technologies that previously swallowed entire buildings fit in our hands – and now they support climate solutions in the areas of electricity, transport and renewable energies, ”said Energy Minister Jennifer M. Granholm.“DOEWorld-class scientists are working to reduce the carbon footprint of microtechnologies used by billions of people around the world to secure our future of clean energy, increase American competitiveness, and be a leader in climate change and innovation Role to play. “

Guha’s project bears the title“Ultra-dense, near-perfect, atomic and synaptic memory. ”His team will work to understand and develop new approaches to storage for future computing.

The need for unlimited fast storage and more efficient storage-centric computing is critical to future global computing needs, and storage technology is the major bottleneck for extremely large computing platforms. Microelectronic innovations today counteract the great challenge of memory bottlenecks, but do not solve them. The materials, devices and architectures that provide solutions do not yet exist and must be developed on the basis of scientific knowledge of the mechanisms at the electronic, atomic and system levels.

Research could lead to more energy efficient computing, which is reflected in new and more widespread computing applications in all areas of society and the world.

“Our planned research is fundamental in nature and aims to understand and develop new approaches to digital and analog storage for future computing, ”said Guha, senior advisor to the Argonne Directorate of Physical Sciences and Engineering and professor at the Pritzker School of. from the University of Chicago Molecular Engineering.

The aim of the team is to conduct the discovery research that is necessary for an extremely efficient memory of the future – orders of magnitude denser, more energetically efficient and more powerful than today.

Taylor’s project is titled“Threadwork: a transformative co-design approach for materials and computer architecture research. ”It involves a multidisciplinary collaboration that takes into account the interactions between materials, physics, architectures and software.

Threadwork is an approach to materials and computational architecture research that will transform the process by which scientists conduct microelectronics research. A key component of Threadwork is a simulation framework to study relationships from materials to applications. This coupling, or co-design, is essential to identify the most promising avenues for research into materials and devices that have implications for microelectronics, detectors for high energy and nuclear physics research, and other applications directed towards it DOE.

“I am very excited about the opportunities Threadwork’s co-design approach offers to connect applications with materials science and accelerate progress in several scientific fields, ”said Taylor, Director of Mathematics and Computer Science at Argonne.

The team includes scientists from the fields of materials research in neuromorphic – or brain-inspired – devices and connections, high-energy and nuclear physics detectors, computer architecture, neuromorphic algorithms and methods of artificial intelligence, atomistic modeling and energy-efficient computing.

Also at Taylor’s suggestion are Anand Bhattacharya, Pierre Darancet, Salman Habib, Xuedan Ma, Sandeep Madireddy, Xingfu Wu, Angel Yanguas-Gil and Jinlong Zhang (Argonne); Andrew Chien (joint appointment with Argonne and the University of Chicago); and Mark Hersam (Northwestern University).

Guha’s proposal includes Pete Beckman, Dillon Fong, and Charudatta Phatak (Argonne); Giulia Galli and Tian Zhong (joint appointments with Argonne and the University of Chicago); and Anand Raghunathan and Kaushik Roy (Purdue University).

The projects were carried out on the basis of peer reviews in the framework of the DOE Announcement of the National Laboratory“Co-design research for microelectronics. “ The Argonne projects received a total of. $10.5 Million. DOEThe total funding for the award is $54 Millions for projects with a term of up to three years18th Million in the fiscal year 2021 US dollars and net income funding subject to congressional funds.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. As the country’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually all scientific disciplines. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of corporations, universities, and federal, state and local agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership, and prepare the nation for a brighter future. With employees from more than 60 Nations is administered by Argonne UChicago Argonne, GMBH for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the largest single funder of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https: // ener gy .gov / s c ience.