Engineers at Morgan State University, a historically Black institution, are advancing microelectronics and transportation.
Transportation inaccessibility and the worldwide microchip shortage have ravaged post-industrial economies for years, exposing their vulnerability to global disruptions. Researchers at Morgan State University are using the lessons learned from that past to secure a less precarious future.
Prompted by the pandemic-fueled chip shortage, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law in 2022. The law provides billions of dollars for research on and development of the semiconductors that are used to make microchips, as well as for innovative approaches to address supply chain issues and to increase the diversity of the technology workforce.
The microelectronics center at Morgan aims to change that. “We believe that a sweet spot for university research is in the space of new materials and device development,” says Spencer. Initial research at the center will focus on designing and developing novel types of chips with different semiconductor materials, such as those with a wide or ultra-wide band gap. Wider gaps mean smaller and faster electronic devices with increased reliability and energy efficiency.
The center also plans to be involved in advanced packaging, or how fabricated semiconductor components are placed onto a surface to create a functional chip. Spencer explains that this previously underappreciated aspect of chip construction is now considered a critical area where more development is needed. One recent advance is called heterogeneous integration, in which the best possible materials are separately manufactured and then incorporated into one chip to improve performance.
A collection of eight mid-Atlantic-based universities belong to SMARTER, including Morgan, which leads this regional team with federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Having a historically Black university as the lead is significant, says Mansoureh Jeihani, director of NTC, and Morgan is the first HBCU to be a lead of a regional center.
Researchers at SMARTER look at all of their projects with an equity lens. One of their ongoing projects, dubbed the Automated Wheelchair was designed to enable people with mobility disabilities to travel more independently by creating a “driverless” wheelchair that can traverse public spaces like airports. They’re even testing their invention at the BWI airport under real-world conditions like security checkpoints and foot-traffic congestion.
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