VLSI: Very Large-Scale Integration Where Small Is Getting Smaller Fast

July 2001

IC through eye of a needle

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
—William Blake, 1803

If the world is agog in fascination over the Internet, long-haul networks and LANs, the network "inside the box"—those miniature universes of Integrated Circuits (ICs) that rule every computer—are readying a little fascination of their own.

Driven by Moore's Law these past thirty years, ICs are getting smaller, faster, and more powerful, seemingly all at once. Small, meaning nano-sizes; fast, meaning TeraOps—trillions of operations per second!—and powerful, meaning real-time tasking of multi-sensor platforms, virtual reality systems, and searches of large dynamic databases.

And as if small isn't small enough, chips are quickly heading for even smaller realms. Entire systems—Systems-on-a-Chip (SOC)—now reside on the same miniscule plot of real estate with millions and millions of transistors as neighbors. Deep-submicron process technology allows MITRE engineers to integrate complete system functionality on a single silicon chip. Within the decade, metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) channel lengths will dip into the range of 50 nanometers—less than 200 atoms in length! Big stuff from small stuff, certain to crack a smile of approval from William Blake, is afoot in MITRE's laboratories.

At MITRE, Very Large-Scale Integration technology straddles both the worlds of VLSI research and the here-and-now reality of "in-box" applications. Off-the-shelf or custom built to harness emerging technologies, chips are designed, prototyped, and then integrated into a wide array of systems applications.

On the one hand, MITRE conducts research on new, state-of-the-art Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) tools and design concepts that allow for the rapid insertion of new technologies into existing systems. And on the other, through its affiliation with the Semiconductor Research Corporation, collaborates with industry and academia to participate in and to set the future direction of VLSI research. Such flexibility can be brought to bear on other vital MITRE projects such as the now world-famous Global Positioning System (GPS), for which the VLSI group created a multi-million transistor Interference Processor capable of billions operations per second. GPS receivers, once highly susceptible to interference, now have an anti-jam signal processor.

And the future is rushing forward fast and furiously. The VLSI standard of CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) devices is being challenged by plastic semiconductors and single-electron transistors (SETs); while dimensionality, in the form of 3-D stacking of layer upon layer of transistors, has hit the normally flat neighborhood with its own brand of skyscraper. Driven further by Moore's Law, ever-increasing chip miniaturization may be supplanted entirely by molecular electronics, where wires and switches are made of individual or small groups of molecules.

VLSI research and application is an exciting place to be at MITRE. Hold the world of silicon IC technology in the palm of your hand and watch it grow smaller. All it takes is a resume. Send yours today.

Solutions That Make a Difference.®
Copyright © 1997-2013, The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
MITRE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
Material on this site may be copied and distributed with permission only.

Privacy Policy | Contact Us