The Department of Defense has awarded an additional $27 million from the CHIPS & Science Act to CA DREAMS. This continued investment will further support CA DREAMS in advancing U.S. semiconductor capabilities by expanding its infrastructure, operations, and workforce development.

In an effort to create non-traditional pathways into the semiconductor and microelectronics workforce, the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (CA DREAMS) can now award microcredentials certified by IEEE to fellows and undergraduate students who complete its Cleanroom Gateway training program.

California DREAMS provided training and internships to two undergraduate cohorts this summer. The program exposes students to research faculty laboratories earlier in their academic studies; advises students on what companies to apply for after they have completed the program; and counsels students on what courses they should take to continue forward in the field.

Troubleshooting for secondary source materials can often be time and labor intensive, taking up to a year to solve. In a Pipe Cleaner project, Hub partners University of California, San Diego and Northrop Grumman worked together to find a substitute process material. The promising result took months off their normal timeline.

The Microelectronics Commons initiative has released a comprehensive list of the 33 semiconductor technology projects that have been chosen to receive the program’s first round of funding. Northrop Grumman leads both initiatives awarded project funds via the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (CA DREAMS).

An engineer from USC and an engineer from Northrop Grumman walk into an elevator. The two strike up a conversation, and in the short time it takes to arrive at their destination, a new collaborative Pipe Cleaner project is born. It may help accelerate breakthroughs and solutions through a lab-to-fab model.

The US Department of Defense is directing $31.9m in funding to the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (CA DREAMS), led by USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute. The award aims to accelerate the development of advanced semiconductor technologies.

Through a collaboration initiated by the CA DREAMS hub, UC Santa Barbara’s Nanofabrication Facility is leveraging data analytics tools from PDF Solutions to improve uniformity and repeatability in academic nanofab processes. If successful, it could put the hub on the right path to accelerating lab-to-fab transitions.

The Department of Defense (DoD) announced on September 17, 2024 that it is directing $31.9 million in funding to the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (CA DREAMS), led by the University of Southern California (USC). The award aims to accelerate the development of advanced semiconductor technologies through two projects led by Northrop Grumman.

Adapted from a successful program at the University of California Santa Barbara by the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (DREAMS), the CHIPS Technician Fellows Program was created to develop a new pipeline of workers into the semiconductor and microelectronics industry by giving them their first experiences in a cleanroom setting.