NSF Award
0623359
This request is for funds to support an International Mini-Workshop series on An Assessment of Options for a Post-CMOS Information Industry. By 2018 or earlier the Semiconductor Industry will be nearing the end of CMOS scaling and that continued progress in functionality-cost ratios will require the invention of new information processing technologies. A range of new concepts for devices, fabrication techniques, and system architectures are emerging today under the general heading of nanoelectronics that may eventually provide the basis for continuing advances in information technologies that we have experienced for the last three decades. In 2003-2005, the Semiconductor Industry, via the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), continued a process to access the applicability of a wide range of research devices and device concepts to serve as a basis for continuing historical functionality-cost trends. Further, the scope of this assessment was substantially expanded to identify and evaluate key materials and their research issues required to enable the research devices. In 2004, in collaboration with and partially funded by NSFs NNI program, Industry specialists engaged the academic community and obtained their substantive response to the ITRSs 2003 detailed technical assessment of novel logic and memory devices, as well as emerging novel nano architectures via a set of three workshops. These workshops provided additional insights and details regarding specific content of the ITRSs 2003 report.<br/><br/>Intellectual Merit:<br/><br/>There is a need for new thinking in materials, device and nano-architecture research. To<br/>stimulate this thinking, we plan to conduct a set of four workshops in 2006 with the<br/>overarching objective to discuss fundamental scientific issues related to information<br/>processing beyond the domain of CMOS electronics and to set the stage for preparation of<br/>the 2007 ITRS chapters on Emerging Research Devices (ERD) and Emerging Research Materials<br/>(ERM).<br/><br/> Broader impact:<br/><br/>These workshops will result in promoting a close interaction between universities and industry and a new ITRS Roadmap for the future. The ITRS Roadmap and the ITRS chapters on Emerging Research devices and Emerging Research materials influence the directions of research in the universities as well as industry.
