The EIC project UPSPRING is a €2.5M project that aims to reduce the energy consumption of microelectronics chips, to unlock their performance potential. This energy consumption is both an environmental problem and a crucial industrial issue, as the associated heating is nowadays the limiting factor of the performance of the chips. The question of energy consumption addresses a priority EU public policies relative to environmental sustainability.

Information and Communication Technologies will represent 20% of the global electricity demand by 2030. Since 2006, their performances are indeed limited by the heating of the chip, due in particular to leakage currents and data transfers through interconnections.

Our technology is based on quantum materials and on the physical principle of ferroelectricity. As such, it is non-volatile, i.e., in the absence of power supply the logic state is retained. Therefore, there is no static energy consumption. Also, the logic and memory functions are not spatially separated as in current CMOS architectures, but gathered in the same device. This suppresses the large energy cost associated with moving data between the logic and memory units. Combined with ultralow switching energies and low working voltages, Nellow’s innovation makes it possible to envision energies per operation orders
of magnitude below what can be achieved with the current CMOS technology.

The EIC project will boost the development of this technology, and to demonstrate its potential.