Virginia aims new nanoelectronics center at ‘beyond CMOS’ advances

The Virginia Nanoelectronics Center's initial project is the development of information processing based on vanadium dioxide in place of traditional technologies.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing editor, news -- EDN, May 25, 2011

Virginia wants to claim a larger piece of the high-tech pie and is doing so with support from Micron Technology Inc and Semiconductor Research Corp.  

The University of Virginia, in partnership with the College of William and Mary and Old Dominion University, has launched the Virginia Nanoelectronics Center (ViNC), where a key aspect of researchers' work will be the discovery and development of materials for advanced information technologies. The university said ViNC will develop novel devices and circuits for "beyond CMOS" nanoelectronics.

The center's initial project is the development of information processing based on vanadium dioxide in place of traditional technologies. The university said the approach offers the benefit of smaller size and faster processing at lower power.

"This new center is positioning Virginia at the heart of the development of a new nanoscale technology," said Stuart Wolf, university professor and director of the University of Virginia Institute for Nanoscale and Quantum Scientific and Technological Advanced Research (nanoSTAR) and ViNC, in a statement. "This center could establish the commonwealth as the 'Oxide Hills' rather than a new 'Silicon Valley.'"

The center will operate under the auspices of nanoSTAR. The university partners have worked closely with Micron, which owns a memory chip manufacturing facility in Manassas, Va, to launch the new center.

"The formation of ViNC underscores the long-term research partnership that Micron has enjoyed with the University of Virginia," said Scott DeBoer, Micron's vice president of process research and development, in the statement. "The university has a strong history of research related to next-generation memory and logic switch technologies that have been funded under innovative programs such as the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium, the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, and nanoSTAR."

The center is supported by the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, one of three research program entities of the Semiconductor Research Corp. The center is also supported by the commonwealth of Virginia through the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium, an industry-university, state-funded consortium to promote microelectronics in Virginia.

The center is being established with starting grants from the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative and the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium, and matching funds from the three participating universities, for a total of nearly $1.7 million over two years. The center's projects are also funded by National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.