“There’s a need for America to advance its capabilities in chip manufacturing, and an advance of this nature addresses multiple concerns in supply chain, national security and hardware security. As its name suggests, a FinFET passes a current along a fin of semiconducting material that runs through the gate. But transistors must be synchronized to perform operations for microprocessors, sensors and radios used in all electronic devices. Current commercial microelectromechanical resonators cannot be fabricated in a standard chip fabrication process and must be made separately and later bundled with microchips for use. Weinstein’s innovation is to build an acoustic resonator with the existing repertoire of materials and fabrication techniques available in a standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor chip fab.
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