Research Objectives
The goal of the MISCIC Center is to understand the fundamentals of placing microelectromechanical systems/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) devices within dense complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-like chips, creating new CMOS circuit layouts that are compatible with mechanical manipulation. We will initially focus on using MEMS probes to reconfigure circuits by addressing and reversibly switching resistance-change materials embedded within the chip circuitry.
Our experts will investigate circuit topologies and chip architectures that can exploit this configuration capability, and design new resistance change material structures that are compatible with MEMS probes. We are developing IC demonstration vehicles that contain reconfigurable wiring, offering improvement over existing circuits in terms of power consumption and reconfigurable gate density. In addition, we will explore using the probes to integrate storage with logic and memory for a complete on-chip system.
A conceptual illustration of a first generation MISCIC chip.
- A system would likely consist of two chips flip-chipped together to allow probes access to the functional blocks of the circuit.
- The two chips mated with the top chip made transparent so that the probe interactions with the surface can be seen.
- A close up of the probe over block diagrams of logic gates (or nanoscale devices). The dielectric in which the gates are buried is made partially transparent so that they can be seen.
- A conducting trace between two gate electrodes has been partially written using a heated probe, possibly in a phase change layer.
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