Innovating at Speed and at Scale: A Next Generation Infrastructure for Accelerating Semiconductor Technologies

Semiconductor innovation drives improvements to technologies that are critical to modern society.
The country that successfully accelerates semiconductor innovation is positioned to lead future
semiconductor-driven industries and benefit from the resulting economic growth. It is our view
that a next generation infrastructure is necessary to accelerate and enhance semiconductor innovation
in the U.S. In this paper, we propose such an advanced infrastructure composed of a national
network of facilities with enhancements in technology and business models. These enhancements
enable application-driven and challenge-based research and development, and ensure that facilities
are accessible and sustainable. The main tenets are: a challenge-driven operational model, a
next-generation infrastructure to serve that operational model, technology innovations needed for
advanced facilities to speed up learning cycles, and innovative cost-effective business models for
sustainability. Ultimately, the expected outcomes of such a participatory, scalable, and sustainable
nation-level advanced infrastructure will have tremendous impact on government, industry, and
academia alike.