Olivier Bonnaud
University of Rennes (France) and GIP-CNFM Grenoble-France
Adapting micro-nanoelectronics training to meet the energy and sustainability challenges linked to the global evolution of the digital society”
Micro-nanoelectronics has undergone tremendous development over the past sixty years, offering the possibility of performing numerous innovative functions applicable to many fields. The parallel development of design tools involving several families of processors and new languages, more and more performant allowed the creation and fabrication of a large diversity of circuits and systems. These are leading to a proliferation of connected objects adapted to smart sensors, artificial intelligence, and robots that are driving exponential growth in the amount of data transmitted and processed, and exponential growth in the energy consumption associated with the entire digital chain, from user to data center. This growth has also some consequence on the sustainability linked to the involving of many rare and expensive elements in the present technologies.
Since it seems very difficult in the immediate future to slow down this digital development, the only way to avoid an energy bottleneck associated to element limitations in the decade ahead consists to change the technical and technological approaches to the design and production technologies. The target is reducing the energy consumption of all microelectronic components, circuits and systems but also to optimize the consumption of rare elements. Current research work points to numerous approaches that could reduce these consumptions by a factor of ten or more. A number of targeted specialties, such as analogue electronics, asynchronous electronics, power electronics and circuits, nanoelectronics and nanotechnologies, and systems architecture are concerned. To achieve this, combined with the necessary innovation, we need a sufficient number of skilled human resources with both knowledge and know-how covering all levels of training, from technician to doctor, via masters and engineers, in research and development, industrialization, production, test and maintenance. This need calls for a new strategy for higher education and training, which must increase the pool of future graduates by attracting young people and adapting content to the new specialties.
After description of the technical situation and their limitations, particular attention will be paid to the origin of high electrical energy losses, sustainability limitation and to possible improvement for facing the challenges. This is included in the strategy of the French microelectronics/nanoelectronics training network, GIP-CNFM, which comprises twelve inter-university centers with around a hundred technical platforms, including seven clean rooms, covering all specialties in basic training and advanced training focused on priority topics. In the context of European Chips Acts, and national strategy, a 5-year “INFORISM” project was attributed to the CNFM network in 2023. It provides substantial assistance in adapting its platforms to the latest developments in the priority themes mentioned. The presentation will deal successively with the origin of the challenges, potential solutions and actions undertaken by the national network as part of the strategy to acquire skills and know-how and to cope the technical challenges.
Olivier Bonnaud, born in 1950 in France, is a student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay and holds a PhD in microelectronics. In 1984, he became a full professor at the University of Rennes 1 and at Supelec (Engineer School), where he created a microelectronics research laboratory that he directed until 2010, as well as several international joint masters and PhD programs. He has supervised 43 PhDs and worked in cooperation with many international microelectronics academic institutions and companies. He has published or presented more than 600 papers and 7 books including 100 international invited papers/keynotes. Founder in 1985 of a regional inter-university center for microelectronics (CCMO), he headed it until 2010, when he was appointed by the French Minister of Higher Education as Executive Director of the National Coordination for Higher Education to Microelectronics and Nanotechnologies (GIP-CNFM), a network of 12 French inter-university training centers that welcome around 20,000 students a year for hands-on training on technology platforms. President of several scientific national and international associations, evaluator and expert for several research and higher education agencies, member of more than 140 scientific committees of international conferences, he is professor emeritus since 2013, guest professor at the South-East University (Nanjing, China) and international expert in microelectronics field. He was selected for the “1000 global Talents” program by the Chinese government in 2014. In the frame of his long and diverse international cooperation, he received the Jiangsu Friendship Award in 2018, Microelectronics Brazilian Society Award in 2019, Chinese Government Friendship Award in 2023. Among his missions of Executive Director of GIP-CNFM, he is presently coordinating a Five-year National project on Higher Education in the field of Microelectronics and Nanotechnologies, as part of the France 2030 program and Europe Chips Acts.