A critical requirement on the road to prosperity as a global community is the reduction of the power use of information technology (IT) devices so as to ensure the smooth continued development of our information society.

In the Collaborative Research Team Green Nanoelectronics Center (GNC), about 60 leading researchers are working together to develop the core technologies necessary to enable a large reduction in semiconductor LSI power requirements, the technology upon which IT devices are based, to levels one tenth those of the present day, with eventual planned improvement of more than a hundred.

Specifically, a total of 30 researchers from Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hitachi, Renesas Electronics, and ULVAC have joined 20 of AIST's researchers, working side by side, to form the Collaborative Research team.

Furthermore, through collaborative or contract research with 40 distinguished researchers at domestic universities, the collaboration framework between universities and GNC is being reinforced. We are also working with National Institute for Materials Science and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute.

The three main research goals are: (1) the development of low voltage operation CMOS technologies, (2) the development and application of nanocarbon materials, and, (3) the material R&D for phase-change memory devices. Our study proposal was chosen as one of the projects funded as part of the World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology Program (FIRST Program). Our research, in turn, forms one of the projects of the Nanoelectronics initiative "Tsukuba Innovation Arena or TIAnano" with the aim to broaden the impact of our efforts by linking with other Nanoelectronics projects, to help develop the next generation of researchers. The support and understanding of all would be appreciated.