Notice on Issuing the 2023 Annual Project Guide for the Major Research Program of Basic Research of New Devices in the Post-Moore Era
This major research plan is aimed at the major strategic needs of the country’s independent development of chips, focusing on the basic problems of chips, aiming at developing new devices and computing architectures in the post-Moore era, breaking through the bottleneck of chip computing power, promoting the improvement of China’s chip research level and supporting China’s scientific and technological innovation in the chip field.
I. Scientific objectives
This major research plan focuses on the future chip computing power, focusing on the development frontier of the chip field, and plans to make breakthroughs in the new mechanism of ultra-low energy consumption information processing, the new mechanism of carrier approximate ballistic transport, the new materials with high mobility and high density of states, the new method of high-density integration and the new architecture of non-Von computing through the cross-integration of information, mathematics, materials, engineering and life. Ultra-low-power devices with switching energy consumption below 1fJ and high-performance devices that exceed the carrier transport speed limit of silicon-based CMOS are developed, so that the computing power can be improved by more than two orders of magnitude, innovative basic devices, integration methods and computing architecture can be developed, a research team with international influence can be cultivated, and China’s independent innovation ability and international status in the chip field can be enhanced.
II. Core scientific issues
Aiming at the computing bottleneck of chip technology in the post-Moore era, this paper focuses on the following three core scientific issues:
(1) CMOS device energy consumption boundary and breakthrough mechanism.
The following key problems need to be solved: to explore the energy consumption boundary of CMOS devices for single information processing, to study the new mechanism of breaking through this boundary, and to realize the calculation, storage and transmission of data under ultra-low energy consumption.
(2) Device mechanism to break through the speed limit of silicon.
The following key problems need to be solved: On the basis of exploring a new material system with both long free path of carriers and high density of states, the device mechanism of approximate ballistic transport is studied to realize high-performance devices that break through the speed limit of silicon-based carriers.
(3) The mechanism of energy efficiency beyond the classic von Neumann architecture.
We need to focus on the following key issues: explore the mechanism and method of computing and storage integration, and combine the new information coding paradigm to realize a new computing architecture and break through the energy efficiency bottleneck of Von Neumann architecture.
III. Research direction of funding in 2023
(1) Cultivation projects
Focusing on the above-mentioned scientific problems and guided by the overall scientific goal, in 2023, it is planned to fund the application projects with strong exploration, novel topics and good preliminary research foundation. The research directions are as follows:
- Theory, materials and integration technology of ultra-low power devices.
Aiming at the switching energy consumption target below 1fJ, the new principle of logic, memory and sensing devices, their core materials and integration technologies beyond CMOS are studied. The mechanism and model of information processing and storage with extremely low power consumption under extreme physical conditions are studied.
- Theory, materials and integration technology of high-speed and high-performance devices.
Explore the ballistic transport mechanism, seek semiconductor materials beyond the traditional free path and state density of silicon-based channels, and study and realize new field effect devices with high ballistic transport coefficient; Explore the new mechanism and device technology of information high-speed processing, access and transmission with limited energy consumption.
- Energy-efficient computing and storage architecture.
Explore the new computing architecture and storage architecture that break through the bottleneck of Von Neumann’s energy efficiency, and study the design methodology of the new architecture for in-memory computing.
(2) Key support projects.
Focusing on the core scientific issues and guided by the overall scientific goal, in 2023, it is planned to fund the application projects with good accumulation of previous research results, which are at the forefront of current research hotspots and have great contributions to the overall scientific goal. The research directions are as follows:
- atomic channel p-type transistor.
A high-performance and low-power atomic-level channel P-type transistor is developed. The channel thickness is less than 1.5nm, the mobility is more than 100 cm2/vs, and the on-state current is more than 600μA/μm and the off-state current is less than 100pA/μm when Vds = 1V.
- Silicon-based novel synapse devices.
A novel silicon-based neural synaptic device is developed, and the photoelectric synergistic mechanism of multi-conductance states generated by the device under the stimulation of electricity and near infrared light is explored. The physical mechanism and synaptic behavior mechanism that affect the fluctuation and repeatability of the device and its array are clarified, and the related model is established. The scale of the array is not less than 4kbit, the energy consumption of a single operation is less than 1fJ, the operation speed reaches the order of nanosecond, and the weight accuracy reaches more than 3bit, and the neuromorphological vision based on neural synapse array is realized.
- Tensor processing architecture of multivariate coding fusion.
The coding mechanism of two or more new codes, such as random number, fixed point number and floating point number, as well as the computational paradigm of multi-domain integration in digital domain, time domain and frequency domain, the new architecture with configurable data precision and asynchronous cooperation in digital-analog calculation, the circuit design technology with reconfigurable coding and reusable hardware are explored, and a high-precision tensor processor chip is developed. The computational density is greater than 5TOPS/mm2 and the energy efficiency is greater than 50TOPS/W under the equivalent accuracy of 8 bits.
- Energy-efficient in-memory search architecture with heterogeneous integration.
Non-volatile associative memory and its integration technology, heterogeneous fusion in-memory search architecture and mixed precision energy efficiency improvement technology are studied. The energy consumption of single-8bit search is lower than 1fJ, and the search accuracy is equivalent to that of software in multi-modal information retrieval task verification, and the energy efficiency under 8-bit equivalent accuracy is greater than 50 tops/w.
IV. Basic principles of project selection
(1) closely around the core scientific issues, encourage valuable frontier exploration and innovative research.
(2) give priority to research projects that can solve practical problems in chips and have application prospects.
(3) Encourage interdisciplinary research.
(4) focus on funding research projects with good research foundation and early accumulation, which have a direct contribution to the overall scientific objectives.
V. Funding Plan for 2023
In 2023, eight cultivation projects will be funded, with a direct cost of about 800,000 yuan/project and a funding period of three years. The research period in the application for cultivation projects should be filled in as “January 1, 2024-December 31, 2026”; Four key support projects are to be funded, with the direct funding cost of about 3 million yuan/project and the funding period of 4 years. The research period in the application for key support projects should be “January 1, 2024-December 31, 2027”.
VI. Application Requirements and Precautions
(1) Application conditions.
The applicant for this major research project shall meet the following conditions:
1. Have the experience of undertaking basic research projects;
2. with senior professional and technical positions (titles).
Postdoctoral researchers in the station, those who are studying for graduate degrees, and those who have no work unit or whose unit is not a supporting unit may not apply as applicants.
(2) Provisions on application for restricted items.
Implement the relevant requirements specified in the “Application Provisions” of the 2023 National Natural Science Foundation Project Guide.
(3) Matters needing attention in application.
The applicant and the supporting unit shall carefully read and implement the relevant requirements in the project guide, the 2023 National Natural Science Foundation Project Guide and the Notice on the Application and Closing of the 2023 National Natural Science Foundation Project.
- This major research project is paperless. The application is submitted from March 15th to 16: 00 on March 20th, 2023.
(1) The applicant shall fill in and submit the electronic application form and attached materials online according to the requirements of the description and outline of major research projects in the network information system of the National Science Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the information system).
(2) This major research plan aims to closely focus on the core scientific issues, and will guide and integrate the advantages of multi-disciplinary related research strategically to become a project cluster. The applicant shall draw up the project name, scientific objectives, research contents, technical route and corresponding research funds by himself according to the specific scientific problem to be solved in this major research plan and the research direction to be funded by the project guide.
(3) In the application, major research plan is selected as the funding category, cultivation project or key support project is selected as the subcategory description, and basic research of new devices in post-Moore era is selected as the note description, and the corresponding application code is selected according to the specific research content of the application.
There shall be no more than 2 cooperative research units for cultivation projects and key support projects.
(4) In the “Project Basis and Research Content” part of the application, the applicant shall first clearly state that the application conforms to the research direction of funding in this project guide, and its contribution to solving the core scientific problems of this major research plan and realizing the overall scientific objectives of this major research plan.
If the applicant has undertaken other scientific and technological projects related to this major research plan, it should discuss the differences and connections between the applied project and other related projects in the “research basis and working conditions” part of the main body of the application.
- The supporting unit shall, in accordance with the requirements, complete the commitment of the supporting unit, organize the application and review the application materials. Before 16: 00 on March 20, 2023, the electronic application form and attachment materials of the unit will be confirmed one by one through the information system, and the project application list of the unit will be submitted online before 16: 00 on March 21.
- Other precautions.
(1) In order to achieve the overall scientific objectives and multidisciplinary integration of major research programs, the project leaders who have received funding should promise to abide by the regulations on the management and sharing of relevant data and materials, and pay attention to the mutual support relationship with other projects in this major research program during the project implementation.
(2) In order to strengthen the academic exchange of the project and promote the formation of the project group and interdisciplinary integration, this major research plan will hold an annual academic exchange meeting of funded projects every year, and will organize academic seminars in related fields from time to time. The person in charge of the funded project has the obligation to participate in the above-mentioned academic exchange activities organized by the guiding expert group and management working group of this major research plan.
- Consultation mode of this major research plan:
Department of Information Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China
Tel: 010-62327351