UAlbany, Buffalo, Nebraska Partner to Develop Energy Efficient Microelectronics
ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 10, 2024) — The University at Albany is partnering with the University at Buffalo and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to develop new, high-speed microelectronics that require less power than traditional silicon-based products.
Powered by a $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), College of Nananotechnology, Science, and Engineering researchers Nathaniel Cady and Robert Geer are part of a project that aims to reduce the stress on electrical grids challenged by power-sapping artificial intelligence (AI) systems including the hardware needed to train and operate AI tools such as ChatGPT.
The team is led by principal investigator (PI) Jonathan Bird, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, as well as co-PIs Bibhudatta Sahoo (professor of electrical engineering at UB) and Peter Dowben (the Charles Bessey Professor of Physics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln).
For the project, the group aims to develop a new class of transistors — a fundamental component in modern electronic devices that control the flow of electrical current and power and can amplify or switch electronic signals. Transistors are the main component of microchips, which are utilized in everything from smartphones to computers, televisions and satellites.
According to the research team, the new transistors aim to combine the distinct advantages of two different classes of materials: magnetoelectrics, whose magnetization orientation can be switched rapidly and with low-power consumption; and transition-metal dichalcogenides, which are two-dimensional semiconductors consisting of atomically thin sheets that can be utilized as the conducting channel of a transistor.
These “magnetoelectric transistors” can potentially operate at higher speeds while simultaneously requiring less energy than current silicon-based transistors.
“To support the growth of AI, and to do so in a way that is energy efficient and sustainable, we must develop new microelectronics,” said Bird.
“This project leverages ongoing work in my research group to develop novel nanoscale electronics that improve the computing efficiency and reduce power requirements for AI hardware and neuromorphic computing,” said Cady, the associate dean for research at CNSE and professor of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at UAlbany. “I look forward to working with my collaborators at the University at Buffalo, NY CREATES and University of Nebraska-Lincoln for this project.”
The work on the project will be completed at Buffalo’s Center for Advanced Semiconductor Technologies, UAlbany’s CNSE Innovation Lab and the NY CREATES-Albany NanoTech Complex.
The grant also seeks to enhance New York State’s investments in semiconductor fabrication, supply chains and programs that support entrepreneurism and workforce development, which includes a $10 billion partnership announced by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2023 to bring industry leaders such as IBM, Micron, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and others to fund the construction of a cutting-edge High NA Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Center at Albany Nanotech — the first and only publicly owned High NA EUV Center in North America.
The work also comes on the heels of the launch of three new graduate programs in semiconductor engineering at UAlbany in manufacturing, patterning and processing, and metrology.
“CNSE at UAlbany has been an international leader in semiconductor science and engineering for more than 20 years, while our focus on both AI and sustainable engineering are a little more recent,” said CNSE Dean Michele J. Grimm. “This project is an example of how all three distinct research areas can actually overlap. Bringing together engineers from different fields — and different universities in this case — demonstrates how the sum can be greater than the parts in convergent research."
In addition, UAlbany is continuing to expand its academic and research footprint in artificial intelligence through the AI Plus initiative, hallmarked by first-in-the-nation supercomputing collaborations with NVIDIA to adopt the NVIDIA DGX Cloud and with IBM to install the first prototype IBM Artificial Intelligence Unit (IBM AIU) at a university to advance generative AI research.