UCLA Engineering Part of $27M Defense Department-Funded Coalition

The U.S. Department of Defense recently announced it has awarded nearly $27 million to establish the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub (DREAMS) in Southern California composed of 17 academic and industry organizations. The UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA are part of the effort to accelerate the development of domestic manufacturing of microelectronics.

Headquartered at USC, the hub is part of the Microelectronics Commons program funded by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which provided a total of $2 billion this year to fund eight regional innovation hubs involving more than 360 institutions nationwide. 

Electrical and computer engineering professors M.C. Frank Chang, Chee Wei Wong and CK Ken Yang are part of the coalition that will focus on transforming 5G and 6G technologies.

“UCLA Samueli School of Engineering is very excited to be part of the California DREAMS team,” said Yang, who chairs the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. “We look forward to contributing our expertise in leading RF components and advanced systems, and to accelerating the adoption of innovative 5G/6G technologies in a domestic prototyping facility.”

The UCLA Nanofabrication Laboratory overseen by the California NanoSystems Institute is also a collaborating partner. Known simply as the UCLA NanoLab, the facility offers professional technicians and state-of-the-art fabrication and analysis equipment for nanoscale materials. It is available to researchers from UCLA, and the larger Southern California academic and industry community.