Research Actitivites and Interests

The MSRC's research is the foundation for all other Center activities. The founding principle of the Center remains to leverage aggressively competitive and broad ranging research and related professional activities for the support of undergraduate and graduate educational initiatives and industry outreach for regional economic development. Beginning from the strong research activities and reputation developed by the center founders in advanced system-level technologies while at AT&T Bell Laboratories, research directions retain these core themes while continually evolving and extending into critically related areas.

Core Research Thrust

Recognizing the growing importance of the interconnection and packaging environment for sustaining performance improvements in emerging generations of high performance digital electronic systems, the core theme binding nearly all research topics and motivating all educational initiatives in the Center is the exploration and application of advanced system-level technologies for the performance enhancement of mixed technology, advanced packaged microelectronic systems. Programs emphasize the system-level analysis and experimental evaluation of the performance potential of emerging technologies within prototype system testbeds and determination and resolution of compatibility issues impacting their manufacturability in the context of emerging MCM-based microelectronic systems.

Recent Funded Research

Center research necessarily has and continues to span the full range of microelectronics and photonics from devices to system-level synthesis. Topics have included exploration of polymer waveguide and free-space optical interconnections, experimental study of the compatibility of GaAs with submicron Si CMOS, VLSI design of wafer-area networks, cryoelectronics and cryooptics for advanced switching and communication systems, and DSP-based microelectronic systems for image and sensor signal processing. Current and past MSRC research and equipment grants are listed below.

NSF/EPSCoR Experimental Systemic Initiative: Embedded Systems for Image Processing and Intelligent Sensors. $230,000 from NSF ($230,000 additional in matching). S.K. Tewksbury (PI) and L.A. Hornak (co-PI). (1995-1998).
ARPA University Research Initiation Program: Compatibility of Submicron Silicon CMOS with Heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs. $510,000, (1991-1994).
ARPA DEPSCOR supplement for URI program above: Compatibility of Submicron Silicon CMOS with Heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs. $86,420 (1992-1995).
NSF National Young Investigator: Advanced System-Level Technologies: Cointegrated polymer waveguide optical interconnections for wafer-level MCM systems. L.A. Hornak, PI (1992-1997).
NASA EPSCoR: Proposal Development Funds. {\em Information Processing and the Earth Observing System, $70,000. S.K. Tewksbury (PI and manager); H. Tesser (Marshall University), T. Harris (WVU-GIS), F. Vanscoy (WVU-CS) and H. Ammar (WVU-ECE) co-PIs.
NSF: Novel Technologies for Nanostructure Array Fabrication, NSF, B. Das PI. $50,000 (1995-1996).
AFOSR/DEPSCoR: Equipment Resources for MCM Technology and System Prototyping, L. A. Hornak PI, S. K. Tewksbury co-PI, , $313,604 (1993-1994).
ARPA/E-Systems: HTS Technology Insertion Program: Cryoelectronics in MCM Based Systems, S. K. Tewksbury PI, L. A. Hornak co-PI, $199,982 (1993-1994).
ARPA/E-Systems:Cryoelectronics in MCM Based Systems}, S. K. Tewksbury principle investigator, L. A. Hornak co-principle investigator, $94,200 eight months, (1992-1993).
NSF: {Integrated Interconnections for ULSI Using Si Wafer Area Neworks, S. K. Tewksbury PI, L. A. Hornak co-PI, $138,881. (1992-1994).
WVU Central Funding: Image Processing Applications and Systems Research Laboratory, matching funds for NSF Systemic Program award above. S.K. Tewksbury (PI). $40,000 (1995).
WVU Central Funding: Strategic Research Initiative Proposal: MSRC Microfabrication Laboratory Infrastructure Support, Hornak PI. $12,000. (1995). <\UL> <\BLOCKQUOTE>

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