An MIT-led research program, FUTUR-IC, established in 2022 to create next-generation microsystems, has announced several advances including new optical couplers, a sustainability decision-support tool, and workforce training initiatives.
The program aims to integrate electronics and photonics to enable data transmission exceeding 1 petabit per second, addressing energy efficiency and sustainability in data centers and microchip manufacturing.
Key Advances
Optical couplers: Three new devices enable chip-to-chip optical connections analogous to solder bumps in electronics. These are the evanescent coupler (featured in Advanced Engineering Materials), graded index (GRIN) coupler (reported in Journal of Physics: Photonics), and a third coupler developed by Professor Juejun Hu's team (published in Laser & Photonics Reviews). The GRIN coupler operates over a wider light spectrum, while the evanescent coupler is easier to fabricate and allows denser connections.
Sustainability tool: Earthster, a visual model for assessing energy, materials usage, and environmental sustainability across a company's product lines, was developed to support industry decisions.
Workforce programs: FUTUR-IC introduced an online course on semiconductor resource efficiency, gamified digital learning, a summer academy, hands-on bootcamp, and TED-Ed videos for K-12 awareness.
Background
FUTUR-IC (Future Ubiquitous Technology for Resilient, Integrated Circuits) is funded by the NSF Convergence Accelerator. The program's stated goal is to improve resource efficiency in microelectronics, citing that microchip production contributed ~500 megatons of CO2-equivalent emissions in 2021, and data centers may require ~10% of global electricity by 2030.
"Our mantra is to use electronics for computation and photonics for communication."
— Anu Agarwal, FUTUR-IC lead
Anu Agarwal stated that integrating photonics with electronics can reduce energy use, as optical data transmission is more energy-efficient than electronic.