Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  The balance between human existence and microchip benefits is being severely challenged by a relentless and unsustainable appetite for electronics consumption. For the first time in more than 40 years, the semiconductor microchip industry is confronted with limits to transistor size, to its environmental footprint, and to its workforce pipeline readiness.

We have established a global microchip sustainability project called FUTUR-IC, which creates self-consistent 3D technology, ecology, and workforce research solutions to sustain the continued progress of the semiconductor manufacturing and the information systems industry. FUTUR-IC will enable companies to make multi-dimensional decisions based on the consequences for people, planet, and profits.

The Chip Scaling Era has ended, and the Package/System Scaling Era is now in full implementation with no long-term technology roadmap. To maintain performance scaling: i) incremental technology change is insufficient, and ii) supply chain sustainability in terms of workforce quality, materials criticality, and manufacturing effluent has no inherent scaling vector.

Economic risk for the nation has never been so large, and rarely been so dependent on a particular technology evolution. This transformation to chip/package scaling is not a task that any one sector can tackle in isolation; it requires a robust global alliance that unites academia, industry, government, and community.

FUTUR-IC offers such collective research projects and partnerships to pave the way for innovative solutions, ensuring a resilient and prosperous technological future.

Biography:  Dr. Anu Agarwal is a Principal Research Scientist at MIT, developing a Si-CMOS compatible platform for mid-IR sensing and imaging. She is an Optica Fellow (2022), has over 250 journal and refereed conference publications, 21 awarded patents, and 1 pending patent.

She is director of electronic-photonic packaging at the MIT Microphotonics Center and leads the Lab for Education and Application Prototypes (LEAP) at MIT.nano within the Initiative for Knowledge and Initiative in Manufacturing (IKIM). Through this LEAP initiative her team has built hybrid advanced manufacturing skills training programs to bridge the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities gap in STEM across the workforce supply chain from K-Gray. She leads a program in microchip manufacturing sustainability that seeks to build a global self-consistent roadmap across technology, ecology, and workforce.

Location:  MIT Lincoln Laboratory Forbes Road