Mark S. Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECE leads the way with critical research, education, and partnerships

Semiconductors are a crucial element in the manufacturing of many consumer electronics we use on a daily basis, such as smartphones, cameras and automobiles. The COVID-19 pandemic initiated a shortage of semiconductors, mainly due to a surge in buying laptops and other devices needed for remote work and school. An ongoing semiconductor shortage  would damage every industry, weaken global security, and change everyday life as we know it.

As the United States strives to reclaim a leading role in the global semiconductor industry, Purdue University is acting to ensure the nation is prepared to meet the ever-growing demands for these essential components in virtually all of our electronic devices. 

“A university that wants to be the most consequential university in the nation should address the most consequential problem that the country currently faces,” said Mark Lundstrom, Purdues Chief Semiconductor Officer and Special Advisor to the President and Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of ECE. “And that problem is the semiconductor challenge because it underlies everything else that we want to do. So I think the fact that we have made this not only an engineering priority, but a university priority -- that we feel we have a responsibility to help the nation address this challenge-- that's what the most consequential univesity would do."

The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering is playing a key role in these efforts. From education to global partnerships to research and new centers, Purdue ECE is working hand-in-hand with industry, government, and academia to train the next generation of workers, bring high-tech jobs onshore and ensure that the next big breakthroughs happen right here in what Purdue President Mung Chiang has called the budding Silicon Heartland. 

Purdue started the Summer Training, Awareness and Readiness for Semiconductors (STARS) program this year to jump-start students training for careers in the semiconductor industry. (Purdue University photo by John Underwood)

Innovative Education

Purdues Semiconductor Degrees Program (SDP) is the first comprehensive set of innovative, interdisciplinary degrees and credentials in semiconductors and microelectronics in the country. The SDP is advised by an industrial board consisting of CTO/EVP-level executives of more than 25 leading global semiconductor companies, including Microsoft, Texas Instruments, IBM, and Qualcomm. The program will educate both graduate and undergraduate students, enabling a quick ramp-up of skilled talent and creating a next-generation semiconductor workforce.  

Purdue has also partnered with Ivy Tech Community College, the nations largest singly-accredited statewide community college system, to develop industry-driven credentials and experiential programs. For instance, with funding from the Indiana Economic Development Corporations READI program, Purdue and Ivy Tech have developed a new semiconductor workforce development program for the Greater Lafayette region. The two-week program targets high school juniors and seniors, using hands-on activities, visits to area manufacturers, and talks from industry leaders to build a pipeline of bright young minds pursuing education and employment in the semiconductor industry. 

Purdue has developed an interactive, seminar based, one-credit hour course to introduce semiconductor technology, its role in everyday life, impact, and career opportunities to science and engineering students. Introduction to Semiconductors is being taught by Muhammad Hussain, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and is offered both in-person and online. Every week industry representatives discuss relevant semiconductor products, company profiles, career prospects, and answer questions from students.

Upon completion of the Introduction to Semiconductors course, students will be offered opportunities to develop deep-tech skills like Integrated Circuit (IC) design, fabrication and packaging, and semiconductor device and materials characterization through the Purdue Summer Training, Awareness, and Readiness for Semiconductors (STARS) program. The STARS program has two tracks: chip design and semiconductor manufacturing, and is the equivalent of a summer internship.

During the two-week READI program, high school students work on a paper electronic project. (Purdue University photo)

Cutting-Edge Research Centers

The faculty of the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering lead and engage in a wide range of research related to semiconductors and microelectronics. Some lead centers where this is the sole focus. Purdue ECE faculty have been tapped for leadership positions in two new research centers launched by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0 (JUMP 2.0). 

Research conducted in the Center for the Co-Design of Cognitive Systems (CoCoSys) seeks to enable seamless human-AI collaboration. Researchers will enable human-AI systems through synergistic advances in neuro-symbolic-probabilistic algorithms, technology-driven hardware motifs, algorithm-hardware codesign, and collective and collaborative intelligence. Anand Raghunathan, Silicon Valley Professor in ECE, is the Purdue principal investigator and associate director of CoCoSys. Co-PIs are Kaushik Roy, the Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor in ECE; Vijay Raghunathan, ECE professor, associate head of graduate and professional programs, and director of semiconductor education; and Sumeet Gupta, ECE associate professor. 

Vijay Raghunathan, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of semiconductor education, is the Purdue PI of the Center on Cognitive Multispectral Sensors (CogniSense). Stanley Chan, associate professor of ECE, is the co-PI. CogniSense addresses the demand for high-quality unobstructed perception for the safe operation of emerging autonomous systems. By designing sensors that dynamically adapt to “what is being sensed” and “how sensed signals are processed” according to real-time changes in the environment, CogniSense research is projected to dramatically reduce the volume of data produced by these sensors.

“The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue has a rich history of leadership in SRC-funded research,” said Dimitrios Peroulis, the former Michael and Katherine Birck Head and Reilly Professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We are excited that our faculty are key contributors to these new centers that will strongly impact the future of cognitive sensing and computing systems.”

Groundbreaking Research

Purdue research in semiconductors spans the “full stack” from materials and devices, to circuits, systems, and architecture. Once again, Purdue ECE researchers are at the forefront of these efforts.

• The Rapid-HI Design Institute is a multidisciplinary effort led by faculty from the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering - Dan Jiao, Synopsys Professor of ECE and Associate Head of Resource Planning and Management, Cheng-Kok Koh, professor of ECE, and assistant professors of ECE Joy Wang and Qiang Qiu. The goal of the Institute is to automate the Heterogeneous Integration (HI) design from intent to fabrication. Heterogeneous integration (HI) is the assembly and packaging of individual components, such as CPUs, GPUs, memory, FPGAs, transceivers, and power regulators, which are separately manufactured or designed using diverse technologies and different semiconductor processes onto a single substrate.
• Kaushik Roy, Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor of ECE, and Anand Raghunathan, Silicon Valley Professor of ECE,  lead research on new approaches to information processing in C-BRIC, the$36M SRC/DARPA Center for Brain-inspired Computing and in the Institute for Cognitive Computing. The goal is to deliver key advances in cognitive computing to enable a new generation of autonomous intelligent systems.
• Under the leadership of Peide “Peter” Ye, Richard J. and Mary Jo Schwartz Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue faculty are actively engaged in the exploration of novel electronic materials and devices for post-Moore era semiconductor technologies. One of the utilized technologies is called atomic layer deposition (ALD), which is a key process in fabricating semiconductor devices in particular as the dimension of state-of-the-art device technology is approaching single-digit nanometer length scales.
• Probabilistic Spin Logic (PSL) is a novel approach for information processing that is being explored by a team led by Supriyo Datta, Thomas Duncan Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Zhihong Chen, professor of ECE and Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of Birck Nanotechnology Center, and Joerg Appenzeller, Barry M. and Patricia L. Epstein Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The team has published many other breakthroughs, most notably an experimental demonstration of optimization and invertible logic using unstable magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs), and the feasibility of MTJs to demonstrate that complex circuit operations are achievable in realistic hardware systems.
• Appenzeller, Chen, and Ye, along with Muhammad Ashraful Alam, Jai N. Gupta Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and David B. Janes, professor of ECE, are actively engaged in the exploration of emerging logic, memory, and interconnected technologies. The team has focused on experimental demonstrations of these technologies based on novel materials including low-dimensional materials and ferroelectrics.

Under the leadership of Prof. Alam, Purdue is well-known for fundamental work on the reliability physics of semiconductor logic and memory devices, both for application-specific consumer electronics and radiation-hardened secure electronics for defense applications.

Leaders from Purdue University and various Greek universities and organizations gathered to sign a series of MOU. (Niki Pateraki photo)

Global Partnerships

Purdue is now the only university in the nation with bilateral partnerships in semiconductors with Europe, India and Japan. 

Vijay Raghunathan, director of semiconductor education at Purdue and a professor of ECE, says these agreements send a very strong message.

“It is a reflection and a recognition of Purdue being not just Americas leading university in semiconductor workforce and R&D but also blazing a trail globally in terms of academic institutions putting together international partnerships,” said Raghunathan.

These agreements mark Purdues ongoing global outreach effort to help ramp up skilled talent for the next generation of the semiconductor workforce.  

• Purdue University entered into a transformative agreement to become the flagship academic partner and collaborator with the government of India. Purdue is established as a key collaborator with India and the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) in skilled workforce development and joint research and innovation in the burgeoning fields of semiconductors and microelectronics.
• A series of Memoranda of Understanding between Purdue and four universities in Greece will create vital academic, research, and innovation collaboration among the partners, and study abroad opportunities for Purdue students. An agreement with the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce for Purdue to offer training for workforce development in Greece and also for companies and industry in Greece to partner with faculty at Purdue and pursue research and innovation.
• Purdue signed a landmark international agreement, partnering with Micron, Tokyo Electron, and other educational institutions in the United States and Japan to establish the “UPWARDS Network” for workforce advancement and research and development in semiconductors.
• Purdue University and the state of Indiana reached a first-of-its-kind agreement with a cutting-edge European nano- and digital technology innovation hub, Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec). imec will have a presence on Purdues campus, working side-by-side with faculty and students at the Birck Nanotechnology Center. Additionally, Purdue students and faculty will have an opportunity to work in Belgium.
• Purdue University and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) will soon launch a dual-degree masters program in semiconductors as part of a newly signed agreement to cooperate
  in education and research in semiconductors and microelectronics. The proposed dual-degree program will focus on an innovative, cooperatively developed curriculum to meet the industry's growing needs. The partnership would also involve research collaboration.

The Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering is uniquely positioned to help Purdue achieve its goals related to semiconductors and microelectronics: research and development, workforce development, and business growth. Purdue ECE is continually strengthening its leadership in the semiconductor and microelectronics industry, making significant investments in developing the next generation workforce and supporting novel research to usher in new processes and technologies.