Microsystems Technology Laboratories
The MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) is an inter-departmental laboratory providing device fabrication and CAD infrastructure support to the entire campus. The lab’s mission is to support research and education in devices, circuits and systems design. MTL has 30 core faculty members who are engaged in diverse research areas related to device fabrication, integrated circuits and systems, photonics, MEMS, as well as molecular and nanotechnologies. In addition, more than 110 affiliate faculty members benefit from the fabrication and/or CAD infrastructure provided by MTL. Typically, more than 500 researchers, primarily graduate students, benefit and/or conduct research using MTL infrastructure, in a given year.
MTL’s fabrication environment includes three clean rooms totaling 6,500 sq ft: the state-of-the-art class-10 Integrated Circuits Laboratory, the Class 100 Technology Research Laboratory, and the flexible Exploratory Materials Laboratory. The computational environment provides access to advanced electronic design automation (EDA) for device, circuit and system design. The fabrication and computation facilities of MTL are maintained and operated by a full-time staff of more than 40 professionals.
MTL engages its users in a number of technical events. MTL hosts a regular seminar series spanning diverse technical areas related to devices and circuits. In addition, MTL holds an annual research conference (MARC) run by MTL graduate students in conjunction with a steering committee. The conference is widely attended by industry, faculty, students and staff.
MTL partners with industry through the Microsystems Industrial Group (MIG). MTL has four affiliated industrial research centers with more focused interests: the Center for Integrated Circuits and Systems (CICS), Intelligent Transportation Research Center (ITRC), MEMS@MIT, and the Center for Integrated Photonic Systems (CIPS).
Research conducted at the MTL can be broadly classified into five categories:
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Circuits and Systems
Design, optimization, prototyping and characterization of a broad range of integrated circuits related to analog, digital signal processing, high-speed wireless and wireline communications, and power electronics. Special emphasis is placed on energy-aware design of integrated circuits and systems.
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Electronic Devices and Emerging Technologies
Research in materials, fabrication and device physics of transistors for high performance digital and analog circuit applications; covers a range of technologies from silicon based devices to compound semiconductor transistors (e.g., InGaAs and GaN). Also includes research on modeling semiconductor processing, particularly manufacturing variation and its impact on integrated circuit performance.
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MEMS and BioMEMS
Research in design, modeling and fabrication of micro-electro-mechanical devices such as microsensors and actuators with application to physical, chemical and biological systems.
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Molecular and Nanotechnology
Research on novel nanostructures using molecular, polymeric, or crystalline materials, including nanotubes, nanowires and quantum dots, to investigate physical processes and operation of individual nano-scale devices, large-area nanostructured optics/electronics, and integrated heterogeneous systems of nanostructured elements.
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Photonics
Design and fabrication of photonics devices and optoelectronic components; the development of new photonic materials including organics and silicon as well as new approaches such as metamaterials from plasmonics to photonic crystals. Demonstration of complete system concepts such as photonics for energy conversion, lighting, optical communications, and high-performance computing.
