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.

Experts forecast that in the coming years there will be tens of thousands more jobs in the semiconductor and microelectronics industry than people qualified to fill them. One way to help meet that future demand is by sparking interest and enthusiasm in young people to continue in STEM-focused education.

California DREAMS is conducting a pilot Cleanroom Gateway this summer for specialized learners and undergraduate students, with the goal of kickstarting a new pipeline of inspired and qualified workers by giving them their first experiences in a cleanroom setting.

California DREAMS is exploring its potential to combine the capabilities of its industry-leading institutions into one place. Seven university nanofabrication laboratories are a part of DREAMS, each with unique strengths that the superhub is working to standardize into a sum even greater than its parts.