Founded two years ago by Krishnendu Chakrabarty, the ASU Center for Semiconductor Microelectronics trains students and works with industry partners to test microelectronics in space's extreme conditions.
"(We) break down the silos and enable faculty to collaborate across the boundaries that we have had in the past, interdisciplinary boundaries," said Chakrabarty, the lab director and a Fulton professor of microelectronics.
ACME is at the forefront of developing fast, compact, reliable, low-cost and low-power devices that can function in harsh environments. These environments carry factors, such as radiation, pressure and temperature fluctuations that significantly impact the operation ability of the system.
For instance, microelectronics is used in space devices, satellites and spacecraft, where the intense radiation in space can cause logic circuits to malfunction.
Logic circuits allow the system to process complex orders by taking the output from one logic gate and inputting it into another.
"The electronics that we design and manufacture go into space where there is a lot of radiation. So can we make our systems rad-hard or tolerant to radiation?" Chakrabarty said. "You have energized particles hit electronics, they affect their operation."
According to Matthew Marinella, a faculty member of ACME, the radiation generates an additional charge, which causes the electrons holding the state of flash memory to be released. Consequently, flash loses its memory, causing failures in logic circuits.
Hugh Barnaby, a professor at the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, is a leading expert in microelectronics radiation testing. At ACME he tests microelectronics to their fullest capacity so they can be safely used.
"What kind of radiation environment do we care about here? And then you test to characterize that environment," Barnaby said. "Then you over-test, of course, because you want to make sure that you don't just test to meet the minimum."
Microelectronics is used at the core of any electronic sent to space, including satellites that provide cell service and internet. According to Eduardo Ortega, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering and researcher at ACME, improving the longevity and efficiency of these microelectronics could allow for enhanced connectivity, with 6G or 7G capabilities.
"As the internet has blossomed from the early 2000s and has provided more interconnected globalization of communication that essentially has now necessitated the need for the physical hardware to help support (it)," Ortega said.
Ortega's research is focused on making anomaly detection algorithms more efficient, so systems can identify errors without taking significant resources from its main purpose.
ACME is a collection of dozens of projects looking at all aspects of microelectronics, including testing and application of real-world scenarios on the system.
"We design the architecture and design the circuits, design the system itself, so that we can take out the heat faster, we can spread the heat out so it doesn't get localized," Chakrabarty said. "We also think of the test scenario when we test these chips after manufacturing."
The research done at ACME does not stay abstract — it is done in collaboration with industry or government technologies. ACME works with organizations like the National Science Foundation, the Department Of Defense, Intel and the Semiconductor Research Corporation.
The semiconductor industry can use ACME's research capabilities and facilities to test or develop its work. According to Barnaby, some faculty and students are wrapping up research with Skywater Technology to improve reliability.
"This is fundamental research, so it's not ideas that they would use the very next year. (We're) working on like a five-year horizon," Chakrabarty said. "So research we do ends up being published, and grad students will finish and maybe join those companies."
While ACME works closely with external organizations, there is also heavy overlap in faculty between the lab and other semiconductor initiatives at ASU. ACME faculty includes people from the SWAP Hub, an ASU-led project established by the Department of Defense's Microelectronics Commons.
"ACME allows professors from different areas of microelectronics to collaborate, and gives them an incentive mechanism to collaborate," Chakrabarty said.
Microelectronics continues to be a part of Arizona's economy and ASU's innovative mission. This has created an equally dedicated ecosystem of interdisciplinary researchers and support staff.
"ACME is not just about faculty and students, (it's) also about the staff… Don Zyriek is our research engineer," Chakrabarty said. "Wendy Johnson is our project manager, and Robina Sayed is our project coordinator. It's actually a large team effort."
Testing microelectronics for the extreme conditions of space or military use requires creative thinking and technical expertise. ACME was developed to create those opportunities across the discipline, so they can directly improve the industry.
"We really want the grad students and postdocs to sit together, go for lunch together, have coffee together, come up with ideas, because that's where I think the real long-term impact lies," Chakrabarty said.
Edited by Alysa Horton, Abigail Beck and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporters at hhuynh18@asu.edu and syramir2@asu.edu and follow @nerdyoso on X.
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