The Alabama Micro/Nano Science and Technology Center, housed in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University, has been an active, interdisciplinary research lab and center devoted to advancing solid-state device and packaging technology for more than 40 years. The center hosts multiple laboratories with excellent capabilities and has numerous affiliated faculty and students from across Auburn University. Over the years, the center has leveraged the support of the state of Alabama and many government and industry sponsors to become the centerpiece of microelectronics research. The center has helped produce numerous engineers who have gone on to prominent careers in government, industry and academia, where they continue to make excellent contributions to technology and humanity. While the semiconductor and electronics industries may enjoy additional years of Moore’s Law scaling, we have entered a time where we need to take a deeper look at the options to push technology beyond the current roadmap and expectations. This is by no means the end, but instead is a great opportunity as we begin to engineer and advance technology and systems that were just dreams in the past. This includes micro and nano systems that can harness the real power of quantum phenomena and technology that can seamlessly interact with biological tissue. We will use new fabrication processes, engineer new materials and structures, and explore and apply new states of matter. These systems will help us sense, communicate and compute in ways that have never been accomplished before. The goal of AMNSTC is to provide the capabilities to our excellent researchers (faculty, staff, students and external personnel) and to develop deeper relationships with government and industrial sponsors to tackle these exciting engineering challenges.
- Dr. Michael C. Hamilton, Director of AMNSTC