9553354 Tewksbury Within the last few years, it has become obvious that a profound and far-ranging paradigm shift in the practice of (and computer-aided design - CAD - tools for) the design of competitive electronic system modules has occurred. Earlier, designers worked with relatively simple ICs performing specific logic functions to create an innovative and novel system realization. Packaged integrated circuits (ICs) had a limited number (14 - 64) of external connections (I/O) and were readily hand soldered onto thru-hole printed circuit boards or connected using standard wire-wrap prototyping techniques. This general approach for circuit boards remained largely unchanged for over two decades and provided the necessary capabilities until a few years ago. During that period, the complexity of digital ICs was doubling approximately every 18 months, with the simple quad gates per IC evolving into today's ICs with hundreds of thousands of gates per IC. Present high-density VLSI ICs routinely require several hundred I/O pins and industry projections suggesting several thousand I/O pins per IC within a little more than a decade. Over much of the last 20 years, the clock rate of digital systems remained surprisingly constant, in the range 10 to 25 MHz. However, the last few years also has seen a remarkably fast progression to higher clock rates extending well above 100 MHz. This progression to higher clock rates also impacts system prototyping dramatically, requiring special techniques to handle not only the fast signal transitions but also the large number of interconnections and I/O lines operating at high speed. The project will obtain (i) for equipment to fabricate prototype, multilayer, surface mount, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and to mount advanced VLSI components on those boards and (ii) for initial research related to image processing accelerators, intelligent sensor systems, and advanced packaging/interconnection technologies. These capabilities provid e a foundation for a broad, experimental program in high performance, embedded microelectronic systems, supplementing existing capabilities for advanced packaging and interconnection technologies presently available. The project will result in a strong experimental microelectronic systems research program designed to provide (i) innovations in microelectronic systems education (undergraduate and graduate), (ii) outreach to companies in WV both for continuing education and for R&D support, (iii) development of high performance modules in support of interdisciplinary research within the academic research community of WV, and (iv) development of a more competitive position for research in the area of high performance microelectronic systems.
