Semiconductors

By Jamie Oberdick

By Jamie Oberdick

The microelectronics industry is nearing a tipping point. The silicon chips at the heart of everyday electronic devices are running into performance limits, raising the need for new materials and technologies to continue making faster, more efficient devices.  

China recently limited the export of gallium nitride, a type of semiconductor used to manufacture a variety of consumer power electronics, such as cellphones and computers, as well as medical devices, cars, wind turbines, solar farms, LED lightbulbs and more.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In an increasingly digital world, semiconductors or “chips” serve as foundational building blocks for everything from smartphones to supercomputers. The U.S.

Researchers explain how chip architecture and Penn State-led initiatives can help jump-start U.S. chip manufacturing

By Tim Schley

The phrase “advanced chip packaging” might conjure images of a fancy Pringles can. For those who manufacture semiconductors — also known as integrated circuits, chips or microchips — it represents a new frontier, a race to design and mass produce the next generation of semiconductors that use less energy while delivering more computing power.

By Jamie Oberdick

New research suggests that materials commonly overlooked in computer chip design actually play an important role in information processing, a discovery which could lead to faster and more efficient electronics. Using advanced imaging techniques, an international team led by Penn State researchers found that the material that a semiconductor chip device is built on, called the substrate, responds to changes in electricity much like the semiconductor on top of it.

By Jamie Oberdick

Known for its ability to withstand extreme environments and high voltages, silicon carbide (SiC) is a semiconducting material made up of silicon and carbon atoms arranged into crystals that is increasingly becoming essential to modern technologies like electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, telecommunications infrastructure and microelectronics.  

By Jamie Oberdick and Ashley WennersHerron

Moore's Law, a fundamental scaling principle for electronic devices, forecasts that the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years, ensuring more computing power — but a limit exists.

Today's most advanced chips house nearly 50 billion transistors within a space no larger than your thumbnail. The task of cramming even more transistors into that confined area has become more and more difficult, according to Penn State researchers.

For the first time, researchers demonstrate how to electronically alter the direction of electron flow in promising materials for quantum computing

By Gail McCormick