Dr. Nishida will present the Multi-functional Integrated System Technology (MIST) Center, a NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center led by the University of Florida (UF) with founding partner site, University of Central Florida (UCF), focused on the hardware technologies necessary to propel the next generation of smart mobile sensing/computing/communication systems. The MIST Center is motivated by three major research/industry trends: (1) stepping beyond the current challenge of continued conventional scaling of integrated circuits, a.k.a. Moore's Law, (2) exploring new functionalities at intersections of materials/ processes/ devices /circuits for multi-functional systems, and (3) integrating nanoscale materials into micro/nanosystem manufacturing.
While significant advances have been made in the engineering of novel materials at the nano-scale, they must be properly interfaced to larger length scales to fully realize their commercial potential. The MIST Center vision is Innovating More than Moore technologies for smart systems in the Internet of Things era by translating novel materials, devices, and manufacturing processes into multi-functional integrated systems. Multi-functional integrated systems are typified by the synergistic integration of different materials, length scales, input/output energies, devices, transduction mechanisms, and power sources. The MIST Center seeks to catalyze innovation opportunities at the intersections of multiple emerging technologies by fueling research interactions between our academic, industry, and government stakeholders, thus providing unparalleled value to its members. The MIST Center consists of a unique cluster of 30+ cross-disciplinary experts at the two founding universities, UF in Gainesville and UCF in Orlando, located just 115 miles apart in the 3rd most populous state in the nation. Spanning six different academic departments, MIST faculty combine their complementary expertise in materials science, electronics, magnetics, acoustics, photonics, microfluidic devices, MEMS, and circuits to tackle complex research challenges that are critical to the development of multi-functional integrated systems. Through industry-driven collaborative research with its member companies, interdisciplinary mixing is promoted at the MIST Center for pre-competitive research on enabling technologies for integration of computing, sensing, actuation, and energy storage/generation on the same system on a chip (SoC) or system in package (SiP).