A new beta version of the Metrology Exchange to Innovate in Semiconductors (METIS) released this week by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DoC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seeks to accelerate innovative breakthroughs in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.
METIS, a data exchange ecosystem—named after Metis, the Greek goddess of innovative ideas, good counsel, skill, and craft—will make research and data available in a manner that guards intellectual property and protects U.S. security interests.
The ecosystem is intended to support a range of stakeholders, including microelectronic suppliers, manufacturers, product developers, and system engineers in academia and industry who design, fabricate, and test semiconductors, associated component parts, and their supply chains.
In its beta version, METIS will give these stakeholders access to research results on three CHIPS Metrology Projects that are aligned with seven grand challenges, identified by NIST, that require critical attention from a metrology perspective to achieve U.S. leadership in semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing, focused on:
NIST emphasizes, “To be successful, a data plan must be adopted by the communities it serves. Sharing and exchanging data, models, and other data products, like those that will be available through METIS, allows for world-leading microelectronics research to be transferred to the marketplace, enabling and supporting U.S. security and commercial competitiveness.”
The fully deployed METIS version will make available research and data from all CHIPS Metrology projects.
Responses to NIST’s “Building a Metrology Exchange to Innovate in Semiconductors (METIS)” document, which was open to public comment from December 2023 to February 2024, allowed for a diverse group of people to contribute their viewpoints and ensure that stakeholders could provide critical feedback to shape the final paper outlining the vision for the data exchange, NIST reports.
Learn more about METIS via NIST’s webpage.
More About CHIPS For America
CHIPS for America was launched as part of The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law by President Biden in August 2022 to boost American semiconductor research, development, and production, with the ultimate goal of strengthening U.S. leadership in the technology sector. The Act has important provisions in support of standardization.
NIST reports that to-date, CHIPS for America has funded more than $190 million across over 40 projects helping to develop new measurement instruments, measurement methods, and measurement-informed models and simulations for advanced microelectronics design and manufacturing.
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