Over the last 50 years, advances in silicon lithography have driven the exponential miniaturization of electronics, underpinning Moore’s Law. This techno-economic model has enabled the technology industry to double the performance and functionality of digital electronics every two years while maintaining fixed costs, power, and area. However, as transistors approach atomic limits and fabrication costs rise, Moore’s Law is beginning to falter.
At Berkeley Lab, our researchers are reimagining the future of computing beyond Moore’s Law and anticipating the challenges ahead. We are exploring a range of novel opportunities and strategies to continue improving computing performance, functionality, and efficiency. These include superconducting electronics, post-CMOS transistors, new physical phenomena such as skyrmions, and innovative models of computation. Additionally, we are investigating new technologies and computing systems that surpass the performance limitations caused by the tapering of lithographic scaling, including heterogeneous accelerators, neuromorphic computing, and quantum computing. The introduction of quantum devices demands even more aggressive advancements in algorithms and software, in addition to classical hardware for control and use in hybrid algorithms.
Our researchers provide modeling capabilities for new materials, hardware design, and evaluation, as well as algorithms and software developments to enhance performance, energy efficiency, integration, and scaling. Our work in algorithms and software enables emerging scientific challenges, informs hardware designers of computational requirements and options, and adapts to future hardware features.
Our Research Pillars:
- Heterogeneous Architectures
- Neuromorphic Computing
- Quantum Computing
- Post-Moore Microelectronics
- Superconducting Electronics
