DARPA: A Boom for Semiconductor Research?

The U.S. Department of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and other defense-related entities have invented some incredible things. Amongst these have been: super glue, digital photography, the early Internet, virtual reality, and early GPS technology.

In the coming fiscal year, DARPA’s microelectronics R&D initiatives devoted to semiconductor and related technology research will total more than $200 million. Amongst other areas, these are set to focus on the “development of new materials for use in electronics devices, nontraditional architectural approaches, and innovative circuit designs.”

So, going forward, it will be interesting to discover which inventions we all use can be traced back to these initiatives.

About the Author:

Tom Butcher is an Associate Director at VanEck. Formerly an independent writer, researcher, and consultant focusing, amongst other things, on strategic materials, in particular metals, Mr Butcher has 38 years of experience in finance. He has lectured and spoken at conferences around the world. Amongst other things, he writes the “Letter from North America” in the Minor Metals Trade Association's publication The Crucible, and was lead author of a chapter on gallium in the British Geological Survey's Critical Metals Handbook.

The article above is an opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of MV Index Solutions or its affiliates.

Footnotes:
¹Semiconductor Industry Association: SIA Welcomes DARPA Initiative to Advance Transformative Semiconductor Technologies, https://www.semiconductors.org/news/2017/06/01/press_releases_2017/sia_welcomes_darpa_initiative_to_advance_transformative_semiconductor_technologies/ ²Ibid.