Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyAbout UsOfficesMicrosystems Technology Office

Microsystems Technology Office (MTO)

Advanced integrated circuitry.

Since its inception in 1991, DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has been working to create and prevent strategic surprise through investments in compact microelectronic components such as microprocessors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and photonic devices. More

Highlights

ERI Overview

DARPA Electronics Resurgence Initiative

On June 1, 2017, the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) announced a new Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) to ensure far-reaching improvements in electronics performance well beyond the limits of traditional scaling. The ERI will draw on new and existing DARPA programs to make a significant investment into enabling circuit specialization and managing complexity. Building on the tradition of other successful government-industry partnerships, the ERI aims to forge forward-looking collaborations among the commercial electronics community, defense industrial base, university researchers, and the DoD.
Image Caption: An iconic visualization of otherwise invisible magnetic field lines associated with a bar magnet hints of the far weaker biology-based magnetic fields from hearts and brains that DARPA’s new AMBIIENT program aims to measure with unprecedented ease.

Taking Animal Magnetism to the Extreme

Each beat of your heart or burst of brain activity relies on tiny electrophysiological currents that generate minuscule ripples in the surrounding magnetic field.
Circuits We Can Trust

A DARPA Approach to Trusted Microelectronics

Microelectronics support nearly all Department of Defense (DoD) activities, enabling capabilities such as the global positioning system, radar, command and control, and communications. Ensuring secure access to leading-edge microelectronics, however, is a challenge. The changing global semiconductor industry and the sophistication of U.S. adversaries, who might target military electronic components, suggest the need for an updated microelectronics security framework.

Tags

| Agency | Decentralization | Electronics | EW | Globalization | Microsystems | Mobile | Photonics | PNT | Spectrum |

 

Opportunities

To view a selective listing of solicitations posted by this office please visit the MTO Opportunities page, where you can further sort by topic.

Programs

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Adaptive Radar Countermeasures (ARC)

Mr. Paul Tilghman
Current airborne electronic warfare (EW) systems must first identify a threat radar to determine the appropriate preprogrammed electronic countermeasure (ECM) technique. This approach loses effectiveness as radars evolve from fixed analog systems to programmable digital variants with unknown behaviors and agile waveforms. Future radars will likely present an even greater challenge as they will be capable of sensing the environment and adapting their transmissions and signal processing to maximize performance and mitigate interference effects. More
| EW | ISR | Spectrum |

Adaptive RF Technology (ART)

Dr. Tom Rondeau
The Adaptive RF Technology (ART) program aims to significantly advance the hardware used in communication radios by developing a fully adaptive and reconfigurable architecture that is agnostic to specified waveforms and standards. ART-enabled “cognitive” radios would be able to reconfigure themselves to operate in any frequency band with any modulation and for multiple access specifications under a range of environmental and operating conditions. More
| Adaptability | Electronics | Spectrum |

Advanced Wide FOV Architectures for Image Reconstruction and Exploitation (AWARE)

Dr. Whitney Mason
The ability to see farther, with higher clarity, and through darkness and/or obscurants, is vital to nearly all military operations. At the same time, for advanced imaging systems there is an immense need to increase field of view (FOV), resolution, and day/night capability at reduced size, weight and power (SWaP) and cost. The main driver for these requirements is the need to provide dismounted soldiers and near-ground support platforms with the best available imaging tools to enhance combat effectiveness. More
| Imagery | Sensors | Spectrum |

Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT)

Dr. Roy (Troy) Olsson
Today’s electromagnetic (EM) systems use antenna arrays to provide unique capabilities, such as multiple beam forming and electronic steering, which are important for a wide variety of applications such as communications, signal intelligence (SIGINT), radar, and electronic warfare. More
| Adaptability | Decentralization | Spectrum | SWAP |

Atomic Clock with Enhanced Stability (ACES)

Dr. John Burke
Precise timing is essential across DoD systems, including communications, navigation, electronic warfare, intelligence systems reconnaissance, and system-of-systems platform coordination, as well as in national infrastructure applications in commerce and banking, telecommunications, and power distribution. Improved clock performance throughout the timing network, particularly at point-of-use, would enable advanced collaborative capabilities and provide greater resilience to disruptions of timing synchronization networks, notably by reducing reliance on satellite-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) timing signals. More
| Communications | Decentralization | ISR | Microsystems | PNT | Quantum |