DARPA Grant Powers UTD Tools To Design Nanoscale Computer Chips

(From left to right) Cormac Toher, PhD, Kyeongjae Cho, PhD, MS and Chadwin Young, PhD, MS are developing artificial intelligence computational modeling tools that simulate and predict performance of integrated circuits with nanoscale transistors.

A team of five University of Texas at Dallas researchers is working to develop computational modeling tools that use artificial intelligence to do the work 1,000 times faster than simulations processed by supercomputers. The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science researchers received a $1 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to demonstrate the proof-of-concept materials design approach to predicting material properties at the nanometer scale.

The AI-based tools will aid in the design of smaller, faster devices — specifically the development of high-performance terahertz (THz) devices for DARPA applications — and could have broader impacts on advanced materials, including next-generation battery technology.