UMD, Partners Receive $31M for Semiconductor Research

The Midwest Microelectronics Consortium (MMEC) recently announced $31 million for five technology development projects through Microelectronics Commons, including research in secure edge technologies that includes expertise from the University of Maryland’s (UMD) A. James Clark School of Engineering. As a leader in secure edge microelectronics, 5G/6G communications, and microelectronics to support artificial intelligence, UMD serves on the MMEC steering committee.

Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and
Maynard Holliday, who is performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, made the funding announcement at an event on September 19, 2024.

"Conventional security measures target CPUs but increasingly it’s GPUs that are processing the heavy duty computational workload, especially those designed for artificial intelligence and machine learning. We need to better secure GPU hardware architectures while keeping the associated overheads low, and that’s what our team is excited to do," said Institute for Systems Research Director Ankur Srivastava. "We are very appreciative of the White House, the DoD, and MMEC for including this work in the inaugural list of projects funded by the Microelectronics Commons, recognizing the importance of these computing technologies to our country’s economic competitiveness and national security."

Srivastava’s group is a co-investigator for the Secure Edge Project: Validated GPU Based Secure Processing Module project being managed by the MMEC Hub. Working closely with the Northrop Grumman-led team, the project will build validated security measures in next generation GPUs, offering better protections for hardware systems critical to the future of artificial intelligence. In addition to UMD and Northrop Grumman, project partners include NHanced Semiconductors, Battelle, and NVIDIA.

In addition to Secure Edge research, the five projects include 5G/6G, AI hardware, and more. The five MMEC project awards designate a total first-year funding of over $31 million of a total proposed $130 million over the next four years in addition to $29 million in cost share, bringing total potential project budgets to over $159 million.

Published October 3, 2024