About Dreams
Led by the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI), the Defense Ready Electronics and Microsystems Superhub (DREAMS) is one of eight regional innovation hubs established under the Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons Program. This strategic initiative is funded by the CHIPS and Sciences Act of 2022 to develop onshore microelectronics hardware prototyping.
DREAMS unites academic and commercial organizations across Southern California and our partners across the United States with three goals: maturation of advanced RF technologies for rapid prototyping, lab-to-fab transition of semiconductor technologies and training the next-generation of engineers in advanced RF and microelectronics technologies.
The pioneering USC/ISI MOSIS Multi Project Wafer (MPW) fabrication services is at the core of DREAMS. MOSIS is a transformative service that has streamlined the end-to-end prototyping of microchips for educational, commercial and national security applications for over 40 years. MOSIS 2.0 connects customers to an extensive network of state-of-the-art nanofab and foundry services, accelerating the use of advanced process and prototyping technologies within the DREAMS hub, and reducing barriers to innovation.
Unique Capabilities
- MOSIS 2.0, the next chapter of a groundbreaking semiconductor fabrication service established at USC’s Information Sciences Institute in 1981, is the sole customer-focused prototyping platform within the Microelectronics Commons.
- DREAMS wields unprecedented RF prototyping capabilities with over 200 of the nation’s top RF researchers and innovators to address the full scope of advanced RF prototyping for commercial and national security applications. These Industry pioneers, who launched the compound semiconductor revolution in gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN), indium phosphide (InP) and beyond, are at the core of the DREAMS team.
- The DREAMS workflow has been uniquely designed to enable accelerated prototyping with prototype process modules in two weeks; full-flow wafers in eight weeks; and RF system brassboards in 12 months.
- $27
- million first year funding
- 16+
- partners
- 50+
- affiliates
- 7
- University Nanofab Laboratories
- 3
- DOD-volume fab facilities
LATEST NEWS
California has microelectronics DREAMS
“The idea of this hub is to put funding in place so that the university people working in the lab and the industry people that have the fabrication facility for production are working closely together, right at the beginning. So, when the technology breakthrough makes it past the lab, it’s already been experimented with in a way that was rigorous and harmonious with the fabrication facility, which can then pick that up and run with it."
California DREAMS partners kick-off a ‘generational opportunity’ to bolster the U.S. microelectronics industry
Marking their first official site visit, a select group of government, industry, and academic leaders recently gathered at Northrop Grumman’s Space Park campus to discuss their role in a landmark effort to expand research, development, and production of essential advanced microelectronics technologies in the United States.
Inaugural Site Visit sets stage for DREAMS big Year One
More than 75 people (in-person and virtually) gathered for the Inaugural Site Visit of the California DREAMS (Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub) on Jan. 22 at Northrop Grumman’s Space Park campus in Redondo Beach, CA. Academic researchers, industry leaders and government officials met to present their vision, exchange ideas, tour facilities and prepare for a busy first year of the initiative.