Microsystems Technology Office

The Microsystems Technology Office’s (MTO) core mission is the development of high-performance, intelligent microsystems and next-generation components to ensure U.S. dominance in Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR), Electronic Warfare (EW), and Directed Energy (DE). The effectiveness, survivability, and lethality of systems that relate to these applications depend critically on microsystems and components. **Strategy Development** In formulating the strategy to achieve these objectives, we recognize that the enormous off-shore investments in commercial electronics have encroached on the MTO technology space, particularly as manifested by the globalization of leading-edge silicon manufacturing and an increasing footprint into state-of-art (SoA) packaging. U.S. technological dominance in microelectronics materials, processes, devices, and architectural designs can only be sustained through the development of a robust domestic innovation ecosystem that fosters the rapid development and transition of novel concepts into commercially viable manufacturing processes. To this end, MTO has worked with relevant stakeholders across the government to extend and broaden its Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) to focus on today’s need for mid-to-far term research and development that facilitates three-dimensional heterogeneous integration (3DHI) technologies for the next wave of innovation. This includes: - Continued research and development (RD) in core microelectronics research building on MTO’s on-going investment themes, with programs focused on making key contributions that benefit both the defense industrial base and domestic commercial industry - An expansion into RD for advanced manufacturing, including a major new focus on the design, assembly, packaging, and testing technologies for 3DHI that extends well beyond commercial activities providing the foundation for long-term U.S. leadership in microelectronics - The establishment of a national capability for fabricating and prototyping next generation 3DHI microelectronics, leveraging the best available technologies including those developed in the above DARPA activities This is truly an exciting and critical point in our history in which MTO will revolutionize the domestic electronics industry and create disruptive capability for the warfighter. **MTO Strategic Thrusts** MTO focuses on four major thrusts, each addressing key challenges in order to meet its mission: 1. **Local Processing** will fundamentally alter the future battlespace by creating the capability to rapidly assess and make decisions at the tactical edge. Realizing intelligent microsystems – self-tuning, self-optimizing, and mission reconfigurable, at an acceptable size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) – has been a longtime MTO goal. However, past attempts to realize this goal generally fell short because the necessary processing capability could not be locally incorporated. Advances in artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-specific processors, graphics processing units (GPUs), tensor processing units (TPUs), and other special purpose computation technologies now offer a path to overcome this limitation. 2. **Spectrum Dominance** for DoD C4ISR, EW, and DE systems typically is dependent on the analog / mixed-signal front-end, which fundamentally determines key performance characteristics (e.g., bandwidth, tuning range, and dynamic range). This generally leads to DoD requirements that greatly exceed those of the commercial sector. Thus, these technologies tend to be niches that are ignored by the commercial electronics industry, but have extraordinary value-add for the DoD. 3. **Microsystems Manufacture** builds on the emerging revolution in 3DHI and makes these technologies manufacturable and accessible for the DoD and domestic industry. The move to 3D demands new methods to design, fabricate, package, and test complex 3DHI assemblies. In order to be suitable for DoD use, it also demands new technologies to keep these advanced electronics secure. Certain DoD applications also need these complex assemblies to be used in extreme environments. 4. **Disruptive Microsystems** are microsystems for specific national security applications. Such microsystems incorporate, and frequently extend upon, technologies developed under the prior three thrusts. They also typically contain elements that are too high-risk and/or immature to be immediately pursued by the DARPA systems offices. If successful, activities under this thrust will hasten the transition of advanced microsystem technologies into systems of record for future DoD C4ISR, EW, and DE systems.