EXC 1056:  Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfAED)

• Subject Area: Materials Science
• Term: from 2012 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 194636624

Information processing is currently dominated by complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Since the 1960s the advancements in electronics due to scaling of integration densities along Moore’s law have established a general expectation for very short innovation cycles with ever-new application possibilities. Indeed, the huge advancement of electronics over the past decades has been the driving force for innovation in various application fields and has significantly shaped the world we live in today. As CMOS technology is reaching atomic boundaries, it increasingly fails to deal with the negative impacts on device behaviour due to shrinkage (short channel effects, leakage etc.), and Moore’s law is projected to end. Thus, it is accepted that long-term innovation in electronics cannot be based solely on higher planar integration densities. Instead, new ways must be found to address current and future challenges of electronic information processing systems: physical size, speed, energy efficiency, new functionality, self-assembly/-organisation, adaptivity, resilience, cost. Currently, there still is room for improvement in CMOS technology and industry roadmaps reach out to 2022. The past decade has seen significant advances in new materials, which have led to many promising discoveries. While material research needs to continue, some discoveries have now reached a point that warrants exploring device fabrication, circuits and information processing systems for potential applications. As CMOS scaling is projected to end soon after 2020, industry will stop being preoccupied with advancing CMOS and will eagerly look out for new ideas. Given these two developments, we believe that university-based research now has a unique opportunity to integrate discoveries on new materials and technological innovations with the potential for advancing electronic information processing beyond 2020. Specifically, it is the vision of the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfAED) that future CMOS technology will be complemented with new technologies (augmented CMOS), resulting in heterogeneous architectures to form highly efficient information processing environments.

• DFG Programme: Clusters of Excellence
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Dresden
• Participating Institution: Fraunhofer-Institut für Elektronische Nanosysteme (ENAS); Fraunhofer-Institut für Keramische Technologien und Systeme (IKTS); Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR); Kurt-Schwabe-Institut für Mess- und Sensortechnik e.V. Meinsberg (KSI); Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung Dresden (IFW) e.V.; Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V. (IPF); Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme; Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Zellbiologie und Genetik (MPI-CBG)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Gerhard P. Fettweis
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr.-Ing. Franz Baader; Professorin Dr. Christel Baier; Professor Dr. Gianaurelio Cuniberti; Professor Dr. Stefan Diez; Professor Dr.-Ing. Frank Ellinger; Professor Dr. Alexander Eychmüller; Professor Dr. Christof Fetzer; Professorin Dr. Sibylle Gemming; Professor Dr. Jonathon Howard; Professor Dr. Hermann Härtig; Professor Dr.-Ing. Eduard Axel Jorswieck; Professor Dr. Frank Jülicher; Professor Dr. Karl Leo; Professor Dr. Michael Mertig; Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Mikolajick; Dr. Francesca Moresco; Professor Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel; Professor Dr.-Ing. Andreas Richter; Professor Dr. Oliver G. Schmidt; Professor Dr.-Ing. Michael Schröter; Professor Dr. Gotthard Seifert; Professorin Brigitte Voit, Ph.D.; Professor Marino Zerial, Ph.D.