From left, Kim Needy, dean of the College of Engineering, signs a beam while Margaret Sova McCabe, vice chancellor for research and innovation, and Chancellor Charles Robinson observe.
One-of-a-Kind Semiconductor Facility Expected to Open in 2025
By Andy Albertson and Matt McGowan
In less than a year, the University of Arkansas celebrated the groundbreaking and “topping out” of a building that Chancellor Charles Robinson suggested might someday rival the U of A’s most iconic structure, Old Main, in significance to the university and the state of Arkansas.
The Multi-User Silicon Carbide Research and Fabrication Facility, or MUSiC, is expected to open in 2025 in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in south Fayetteville.
The facility will produce microelectronic chips made with silicon carbide, a powerful semiconductor that outperforms basic silicon in several critical ways. The facility will enable the federal government – via national laboratories – businesses of all sizes, and other universities to prototype with silicon carbide, a capability that does not presently exist elsewhere in the U.S.
Work at the facility will bridge the gap between traditional university research and the needs of private industry and will accelerate technological advancement by providing a single location where chips can go from developmental research to prototyping, testing and fabrication.
“This fills a gap for our nation, allowing companies, national laboratories and universities around the nation to develop the low-volume prototypes that go from their labs to fab, ultimately scaling up to the high-volume manufacturing,” said Alan Mantooth, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering and principal investigator for the MUSiC facility. “We fill that gap. And there’s no other place like it in the world. This is the only place that will be able to do that with silicon carbide.”
The 21,760-square-foot facility, located next to the National Center for Reliable Electrical Power Transmission at the research and technology park, will address obstacles to U.S. competitiveness in the development of silicon-carbide electronics used in a wide range of electronic devices, circuits and other consumer applications. The building will feature approximately 8,000 square feet of clean rooms for fabrication and testing.
Education and training within the facility will also accelerate workforce development, helping supply the next generation of engineers and technicians in semiconductor manufacturing, which Mantooth and other leaders have said is critical for bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S., after it was offshored in the late 1990s and early 2000s.