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Engineering |
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Henry
Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science |
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Master Builders
of the Nano-Electronics Age:
New Semiconductor Research Center at UCLA
By Christopher Sutton
UCLA has been selected to lead a new multimillion-dollar research
center for semiconductor research. The Functional Engineered Nano
Architectonics Focus Center (FENA) was established September 1 in
the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.
The term "architectonics" is derived from a Greek word meaning master
builder - which aptly describes the Center's researchers as they build
a new generation of nanoscale materials, structures and devices for
the electronics industry.
The Center is part of an initiative by the Semiconductor Industry
Association (SIA), the industry's largest trade association, and the
Department of Defense to expand semiconductor research at universities.
UCLA becomes the fifth site for a Focus Center since the Microelectronics
Advanced Research Corporation (MARCO), a subsidiary of the SIA, together
with the Department of Defense, launched the Focus Center Research
Program in 1998. The UCLA center is the only new center established
this year.
Electrical engineering professor Kang Wang has been named director
of the Focus Center, which involves researchers from UCLA's departments
of materials science, chemistry, and mathematics and from 11 other
universities, including MIT, UC Berkeley and Santa Barbara, and USC.
Wang's team will explore the challenges facing the semiconductor industry
as the technology that powers today's computers grows ever smaller.
With more and more transistors and other components squeezed onto
a single chip, manufacturers are rapidly approaching the physical
limits posed by current chip-making processes.
Researchers hope to resolve a number of challenges related to post-CMOS
technologies that will allow them to extend semiconductor technology
further into the realm of the nanoscale.
"Our work will be directed at finding new ways to scale CMOS nanoelectronics
to the ultimate limit and beyond," said Wang.
"Advances in nanotechnology, molecular electronics, and quantum computing
are creating the potential for new technology solutions, and we want
to explore them," said Wang. "University-based research collaborations
like this Focus Center are vital to sustaining long-term growth in
the semiconductor industry."
“We are tremendously excited to be selected to lead this important research collaboration,” said Vijay K. Dhir, dean of the School of Engineering. “Dr. Wang and his team have the research and administrative experience to address the current state of knowledge about nanoelectronics technologies and move it forward in a tangible way.”
“UCLA has the ideal infrastructure in place to lead a Center of this kind,” said Wang, who also established the UCLA Nanoelectronics Facility in 1989. “We plan to collaborate with existing centers like the California NanoSystems Institute, the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration, and the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics.”
Wang has organized an interdisciplinary team of materials scientists, chemists, physicists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, bioengineers and mathematicians. Bruce Dunn, professor of materials science and engineering, is co-director of the new center, and electrical engineering professor Jason Woo is the extramural liaison. Other UCLA faculty with joint appointments in the School’s materials science department, including chemistry professor Fraser Stoddart and professor of mathematics Russel Caflisch, will lead two of five research areas within the Focus Center.
The Semiconductor Industry Association selected UCLA to lead the new Center earlier this summer. Contractual negotiations began in August to determine the exact level of funding the Center will receive.
Photo: Irene Fertik |
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COPYRIGHT
2004 UCLA |
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