Creating a 'Virtuous Cycle of Growth'
Michael Fancher, CNSE Vice President for Business Development and Economic Outreach, www.cnse.albany.edu -- Semiconductor International, 8/1/2009
Global leaders in nanotechnology are adopting open innovation in research, development and technology deployment to address the escalating challenges of clock, cost and complexity associated with the continuation of Moore's Law. Public/private partnerships establishing new technology development models are coordinating and leveraging the ever increasing investment necessary to sustain the semiconductor industry's "virtuous cycle of growth."
In 2005, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), as characterized by "More Than Moore: Diversification," advanced a dramatic expansion in the industry's vision of shared challenges associated with the convergence of nanotechnology with electronics, photonics, biotechnology and energy in heterogeneous devices. With the recent passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a U.S. industrial policy is beginning to emerge as ARRA seeks to accelerate the markets' development "clock" by targeting clean energy, smart infrastructure, broadband communications and personalized healthcare. The opportunity to create a virtuous cycle of growth for heterogeneous devices is now possible if government can also address the challenges of cost and complexity. Forging a new partnership with industry and academia through a 21st century open innovation technology development model will play an important role by bringing time, money and know-how to the fore of nanotechnology convergence.
Time — Each market application sector and multi-function device type often seems to operate in a silo, independently pursuing R&D pathways that duplicate efforts and slow the market development clock for heterogeneous devices. The lack of a coherent technology roadmap for achieving interoperability compounds the business challenges by escalating risk, dissipating investment and hindering technology integration for smart-device solutions. ARRA offers the potential to compress the time associated with open innovation in targeted markets by encouraging the development of vertically integrated public-private consortia composed of device-, system- and field-level companies. Federal agencies will need to shift their programmatic emphasis from supporting fundamental research in a piecemeal fashion toward mid-range development programs supporting the pilot-prototype stage in commercialization of smart devices designed for a progression of applications.
Money — Key to unlocking the market opportunities for heterogeneous devices in a progression of applications, from centralized to mobile to field-deployable systems across government, commercial and consumer sectors, is overcoming the escalating cost (of ownership) associated with capital-intensive and technically diverse challenges of high-yield, low-cost nanofabrication. New York state and leading nanoelectronics companies have invested over $5B at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the University at Albany (SUNY), creating an open innovation technology development model. ARRA offers the potential to leverage the money already invested in the expensive More Moore infrastructure by supporting a national nanotechnology innovation and commercialization center. Such a policy would create a fab-centric dial-in-solution capability transferable to commercial fabrication lines using industry-compliant platforms. Federal agencies will need to coordinate and concentrate investments among multiple agencies to expand capabilities that will be open to industry, government and academic partners seeking to commercialize heterogeneous devices.
Know-how — Evolving nanofabrication processes, structures and integration schemes, as delineated in the ITRS "More Moore: Miniaturization," are emerging as alignment platforms capable of addressing the technology challenge of process complexity. Nanoscale patterning, silicon on insulator (SOI) and 3-D wafer-scale packaging are examples of industry-compliant process solutions capable of supporting cross-industry partnership opportunities for integrated system-on-chip applications. The recent expansion of the Focus Center Research Program (FCRP) calling for the establishment of a Connectivity Center demonstrates the industry's and the defense community's recognition of this challenge, as well as the growing dichotomy between companies seeking performance gains in logic and memory and companies seeking diversification gains in heterogeneous devices in pervasive wireless connectivity. ARRA encourages cross-industry partnerships that can leverage and extend the industry's know-how for heterogeneous devices. Such a policy would strengthen our nation's R&D/manufacturing ecosystem by expanding partnerships between academic research centers and small, medium and large companies. Federal agencies will need to support existing industry-driven networks of academic research institutions and invest in the development of technology alignment platforms rather than a specific science or device.
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