From the left: Anand Raghunathan, Purdue’s Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Gary Chiu, MediaTek’s director of Technology for the Strategic Technology Exploration Platform; Chih-Ming Hung, associate vice president of Technology and head of Global Research Partnership at MediaTek; and Joerg Appenzeller, the Barry M. and Patricia L. Epstein Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue.

The Center for a Secure Microelectronics Ecosystem (CSME), a public-private-academic partnership led by Purdue University that aims to address key challenges in securing the microelectronics supply chain, announced in August that MediaTek, the world’s 5th largest global fabless semiconductor company, has joined its consortium. MediaTek joins foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, and EDA partner Synopsys, Inc., a global leader in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP. Through collaboration with the DOD-supported Scalable Asymmetric Lifecycle Engagement (SCALE) Microelectronics Workforce Program at Purdue, students receive training as highly-skilled U.S. microelectronics engineers, hardware designers and manufacturing experts.

“Security research is a foundational aspect of MediaTek’s commitment to innovation, quality and trust,” said MediaTek’s Chih-Ming Hung, associate vice president of technology and head of global research partnership. “By investing in security, MediaTek not only protects its own interests but also contributes to the broader goal of creating a safer more secure digital world.”

CSME is a first-of-its-kind global partnership of academia, industry and government to advance research and workforce development in designing secure microelectronics. Its aim is to help ensure a secure supply of semiconductor chips and related products and tools, from the foundry to the packaged system. It is co-directed by Joerg Appenzeller and Anand Raghunathan, professors in Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Microelectronics is a critical enabler to large parts of the U.S. economy and is of strategic importance to defense and national security. On the other hand, the design and manufacturing of a modern integrated circuit (IC) often involves dozens of entities spread across the globe, making it a critical challenge to ensure security and trustworthiness of the resulting ICs and the systems that they are deployed into. 

“Through a strong partnership between academia, industry and the U.S. government, we ensure a focus on highly relevant research in the field of secure microelectronics,” said Joerg Appenzeller, the Barry M. and Patricia L. Epstein Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “But we go far beyond what an industry consortium typically does through the deliberate merger of research and domestic workforce development.”

To ensure that the center leverages leading academic talent to achieve impact, CSME brings together multiple academic institutions across the U.S. to collaboratively pursue common research goals. Through CSME projects, graduate and undergraduate students are trained to work on secure microelectronics, contributing to the development of a future workforce that can address the challenges of securing the microelectronics supply chain.  

“The highly disaggregated and global nature of the semiconductor lifecycle presents a vast attack surface and many open challenges,” said Anand Raghunathan, Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “CSME offers an opportunity for researchers to advance the field of secure microelectronics while engaging with the industry and government.”