Greetings SCALES Members,
For those of you in academia, I hope the end of the spring semester brings a bit of peace and quiet. For those of you in industry, I hope the summer will bring some much-needed vacation. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you an update on our accomplishments, our current activities, and some thoughts about the future of SCALES.
Thanks to our very successful April 10 meeting in Kissimmee, SCALES helped catalyze the submission of six letters of intent in response to Dept. of Commerce’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for commercial fabrication facilities. These LOIs were, in part, a direct result of the collective discussions and team-building efforts of our team. SCALES will continue to support each of the six entities by providing workforce development and R&D expertise as those proposals move forward.
Building on those successes, SCALES now turns its sights to the three NOFOs expected later in the fall—the Manufacturing Institute(s), the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), and the National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing program (NAPMP). For the Manufacturing Institutes, we are exploring a potential partnership with the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), as well as pursuing a SCALES-centric submission. For NSTC and NAPMP, SCALES is in discussion with both MITRE & ASIC, seeking ways to provide regional strength to these powerful coalitions as we prepare for the next NOFOs. More to come on that soon.
Having completed our four-part workforce development virtual panel discussions focusing on different areas of the semiconductor ecosystem (microelectronics generally; heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging; secure computing; AI/ML hardware), planning for more webinars is underway. If you missed any of the virtual discussions, they are available to view on the SCALES YouTube channel.
In the meantime, please try to attend the bi-weekly meetings via Zoom, every other Monday at Noon. If you need the Zoom info or other logistical assistance, please contact my colleague Harry Monkhorst by email. We continue to need your support and expertise as we move forward with this important initiative.
Thank you,
Mark M. Tehranipoor, PhD
Fellow, IEEE/ACM/NAI