3 Southland Schools Join Team to Revamp Circuit Design
Three Southland universities have joined a major partnership between the U.S. semiconductor industry, academia and the federal government.
UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego last week became members of a team led by UC Berkeley to design and test more complex integrated circuits that can be manufactured easily, economically and reliably. Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz are also among the 10 universities involved in the research.
Another group of six universities, led by Georgia Tech and also including Stanford, will try to increase interconnections on a single chip.
“This program is the most ambitious research project that the U.S. chip industry has undertaken since 1987,” when the Semiconductor Industry Assn. and the federal government formed the Sematech consortium to boost competitiveness, said Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett. When fully funded, the Focus Center Research Program will provide $60 million per year in research funds from Sematech, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and private industry.
