WSU wins nanotech study grant

A research center based at Washington State University has been awarded $1 million from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to help develop nanoscale, or extremely tiny, electronics that would theoretically enable smaller and lighter satellites to process more information.

The money won’t all stay at WSU. Teams at three other schools – Oregon State University, University of Washington and University of Tennessee at Knoxville – will present proposals to the center. The center’s 12 industry partners and the Air Force would then decide which of those proposals to fund, said John Ringo, a WSU professor who teaches electronic engineering.

“It is a big deal for WSU,” said Ringo, who also is the director of The Center for Design of Analog-Digital Integrated Circuits, based in Pullman.

The grant from the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicle Directorate will support 20 to 30 fellowships to graduate and undergraduate students to work with the center’s research.

Ringo said the research center has an initiative to develop nano-technology, electronic circuits that are smaller than 100 nanometers. To understand the scale of a nanometer, Ringo said, the average human blood cell measures about 60 to 80 microns. A micron contains 1,000 nanometers.

So, if researchers build circuits that are 60 nanometers, they could theoretically place 1,000 of those devices across the face of a red blood cell, Ringo said.

Circuits that small would allow the Air Force to build smaller satellites that could perform more functions. But those circuits would also provide wide-ranging possibilities for future consumer electronics, Ringo said.