Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INTERSECT (Interoperable Material-to-Device simulation box for disruptive electronics)
Reporting period: 2020-08-01 to 2022-04-30
Electronics is nowadays pervasive in all aspects of our lives, covering consumer electronics, industrial automation processes and manufacturing, wireless communications, robotics, drones and transport, cloud communications, security and biometrics, automotive and domotics, just to cite a few. As such, the electronics industry plays a dominant role both in terms of macro-economic income (e.g. gross domestic product, market, employments) and in terms of social impact (e.g. social media, artificial intelligence, and internet of things). However, the eroding cost of electronic products along with the ballooning costs of infrastructures and goods are posing serious limitations to the competitiveness and the sustainability of many semiconductor companies. Most critical aspects are related to lack of innovation, inefficient manufacturing and testing of devices that reduce competitiveness and profitable growth.
Information-and-communication technologies have been historically powered by silicon, with development and production taking place mostly in the United States and in Asia. The current and major worldwide drive for big data, machine learning, and quantum computing will push away from this all-silicon platform, and provide a unique opportunity and a clean slate for European industry to rapidly deploy novel technologies based on innovative materials and devices. Leadership requires fast exploration of materials’ properties (e.g. memory effects for memristive computing), linking properties to performance in unexplored architectures, and assessing their business potential. This calls for the innovative tools for the investigation of materials at the device level. Materials modelling can efficiently contribute to this process reducing the experimental trials and fostering efficient top-down and bottom-up design paradigms.
During the project we implemented the IM2D box which is a multi-physics, multi-model, multi-equation, hierarchical and scale-reversible model for material-to-device and device-to-material optimization for an easier exploration of the material workspace from an electronic device-oriented industrial perspective.
A beta version of the code is presently (M40) in the final testing and validation phase, and is available for early adopters. The official release of IM2D is foreseen in summer 2022. The cose has been also presented to possible stakeholders in a set of public dissemination events.
We applied IM2D to pilot cases (ovonic threshold switch selectors and ferroelectric devices) that are pivotal in the field of synaptic electronics and in-memory computing. Besides IM2D, we identified other projects outcomes (KERs) as possible innovation results, to be promoted and disseminated beyond the end of the project.
Information-and-communication technologies have been historically powered by silicon, with development and production taking place mostly in the United States and in Asia. The current and major worldwide drive for big data, machine learning, and quantum computing will push away from this all-silicon platform, and provide a unique opportunity and a clean slate for European industry to rapidly deploy novel technologies based on innovative materials and devices. Leadership requires fast exploration of materials’ properties (e.g. memory effects for memristive computing), linking properties to performance in unexplored architectures, and assessing their business potential. This calls for the innovative tools for the investigation of materials at the device level. Materials modelling can efficiently contribute to this process reducing the experimental trials and fostering efficient top-down and bottom-up design paradigms.
During the project we implemented the IM2D box which is a multi-physics, multi-model, multi-equation, hierarchical and scale-reversible model for material-to-device and device-to-material optimization for an easier exploration of the material workspace from an electronic device-oriented industrial perspective.
A beta version of the code is presently (M40) in the final testing and validation phase, and is available for early adopters. The official release of IM2D is foreseen in summer 2022. The cose has been also presented to possible stakeholders in a set of public dissemination events.
We applied IM2D to pilot cases (ovonic threshold switch selectors and ferroelectric devices) that are pivotal in the field of synaptic electronics and in-memory computing. Besides IM2D, we identified other projects outcomes (KERs) as possible innovation results, to be promoted and disseminated beyond the end of the project.
During the first 18 months of the project, several actions have been realized to achieve the INTERSECT main goals which range from software release to technology transfer, from standardization to integration to EU digital hubs, and develop of disruptive electronics.
During RP2 (M19-M40) we completed all the activities proposed in the DoA plan. This included the implementation of the IM2D its and of its components (WP1-WP2), such as the GUI, the interoperability hub (syntactic and semantic ontology-based interconnection), simulation hub (coupling-and-linking of codes and workflows for materials properties on demand), data hub (interconnection to external databased through OPTIMADE protocol). IM2D has been applied to representative cases of synaptic electronics (WP3), by providing a direct relationship between composition (e.g. stoichiometry, geometry, defects, impurities) and the electrical response of the corresponding devices.
A massive exploitation, dissemination and communication activity has been put in place (expecially in the last part of the project) to promote the INTRERSECT results to external audiences (WP4-WP5), by means of specific actions dedicated to industrial stakeholders, academic users and general public.
During RP2 (M19-M40) we completed all the activities proposed in the DoA plan. This included the implementation of the IM2D its and of its components (WP1-WP2), such as the GUI, the interoperability hub (syntactic and semantic ontology-based interconnection), simulation hub (coupling-and-linking of codes and workflows for materials properties on demand), data hub (interconnection to external databased through OPTIMADE protocol). IM2D has been applied to representative cases of synaptic electronics (WP3), by providing a direct relationship between composition (e.g. stoichiometry, geometry, defects, impurities) and the electrical response of the corresponding devices.
A massive exploitation, dissemination and communication activity has been put in place (expecially in the last part of the project) to promote the INTRERSECT results to external audiences (WP4-WP5), by means of specific actions dedicated to industrial stakeholders, academic users and general public.
The main ambition of INTERSECT is to help European industries in (re)gaining a leading role in the field of electronics, that is actually a complete domain of United States and Asia. This can be achieved with a huge effort in innovation, creativity, and R&D for brand-new and flexible solutions able to fast catch and satisfy the needs of a market in continuous evolution.
INTERSECT intended to drive the uptake of materials modelling software in industry, bridging the gap between academic innovation and industrial production, with a goal of accelerating the process of materials selection and device design and deployment.
Before INTERSECT, no similar tools on the market combined the highest levels (quantum mechanical) of materials modelling and the simulation of advanced electronic devices and memories.
The realization of INTERSECT (M1-M40) allowed for the implementation of a unique simulation tool able to realize a mater-device co-design, by coupling the materials-design to optimize the defice performances and the learning processes that connect the electrical characteristics of the device to the atomic properties (e.g. impurities/defects/traps states) of the materials.
IM2D is conceived to bring materials modelling to the heart of industrial business decision-making levels, allowing industry to rapidly build custom-designed integrated materials modelling apps and data-driven business decision systems.
The preliminary feedback on the use of IM2D seems to confirm the possibility to reduce the power-consumption of novel electronic devices, as well as as to satisfy a common industrial need related to time to market, R&D cost effectiveness and lack of expertise.
Forecast for the IM2D ROI, determined by the ratio of revenue generated and investment in modelling, is expected to range from 7 to 9.
Finally,by means of the development of interoperability tools and the collaborative activities within EMMC, INTERSECT contributed to the fertilization of the EU digitalization process.
INTERSECT intended to drive the uptake of materials modelling software in industry, bridging the gap between academic innovation and industrial production, with a goal of accelerating the process of materials selection and device design and deployment.
Before INTERSECT, no similar tools on the market combined the highest levels (quantum mechanical) of materials modelling and the simulation of advanced electronic devices and memories.
The realization of INTERSECT (M1-M40) allowed for the implementation of a unique simulation tool able to realize a mater-device co-design, by coupling the materials-design to optimize the defice performances and the learning processes that connect the electrical characteristics of the device to the atomic properties (e.g. impurities/defects/traps states) of the materials.
IM2D is conceived to bring materials modelling to the heart of industrial business decision-making levels, allowing industry to rapidly build custom-designed integrated materials modelling apps and data-driven business decision systems.
The preliminary feedback on the use of IM2D seems to confirm the possibility to reduce the power-consumption of novel electronic devices, as well as as to satisfy a common industrial need related to time to market, R&D cost effectiveness and lack of expertise.
Forecast for the IM2D ROI, determined by the ratio of revenue generated and investment in modelling, is expected to range from 7 to 9.
Finally,by means of the development of interoperability tools and the collaborative activities within EMMC, INTERSECT contributed to the fertilization of the EU digitalization process.