[Liveblog] MARC 2025 by Andi Q. '25
A sciencey science conference, feature Anika '26 and me
Day 1, 6 PM (Andi)
Today is the first day of MARC 2025 (the Microsystems Annual Research Conference) – MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory’s (MTL) annual conference, featuring two days of MIT students presenting their research to MTL’s industry sponsors like Lam Research and GlobalFoundries. It’s also a (heavily subsidized) ski trip! Because MARC isn’t only about serious science; it’s also an opportunity for the MTL community to get together and have fun before the spring semester starts.
Unlike last year, when I tagged along at MARC despite my nonexistent research output (I guess being an undergrad made it okay), I have a poster to present this year! (Stay tuned until day 2 to see it.) Also unlike last year, when our blogs were restricted to use only the top 1000 most common English words, I can describe things in a non-caveman-like way this year! Goodbye “sticking-together rocks”; hello “magnets”!
Anika ’26 is here too, which was a pleasant surprise!
I look dead inside here, but I assure you I was very excited for the conference. It was just that I had to wake up at 6 AM.
The conference kicked off at 10 AM with “winter activities” at the ski resort by our hotel. I went snowboarding, while Anika went cross-country skiing. It was my first time ever snowboarding; I went skiing last year during MARC and thought the snowboarding people looked so cool, so I decided to give it a shot this year.
Unfortunately, I severely underestimated the difficulty of snowboarding, which I quickly realized as I fell onto my face within the first ten seconds of going down the bunny slope. It turns out that snowboarding is completely different from skiing, skateboarding, or any other sport I’ve tried before. It’s fast, terrifying, and cold. (Just like MIT.) But it was really fun and I loved it, even though my body now hurts everywhere because I kept falling on my face. (Just like MIT.)
I heard Anika had a great time cross-country skiing though, with none of the wipeouts I endured during snowboarding.
Anyway, after all that excitement, we got to the hotel and checked in. I’m currently sitting in the lobby writing this post while I wait for the opening ceremony (and dinner!) to begin. Be back in ~1 hour.
Day 1, 9 PM (Andi)
Ok, so that was much longer than 1 hour, but the opening banquet had a lot going on and it felt wrong to pull out my laptop (under my seat) and blog during dinner. But now it’s time for the conference’s evening activities, so I finally have a chance to update you on what happened.
The banquet started with Professor Tomas Palacios (director of MTL) giving a presentation with opening remarks. Apparently, MARC has over 300 people attending this year! Anyway, Professor Palacios has a very… unique style of presentation that is best experienced visually. (Apologies in advance for the jank pictures.)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Next, there was an MTL-themed trivia game. Even though we got ~10 people per team, the questions were still rather tricky. Try to see how many of these you can answer (without Googling)!
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Name the iPod series that had seven generations between 2005 and 2012, included the first iPod with a video camera, and had iPods with both click wheels and touch screens.
- Name the song by American pop band The Postal Service that features two people wearing cleanroom suits in a microelectronics lab.
- What does “CHIPS” stand for in “CHIPS Act”?
- What is the band gap of intrinsic silicon?
- Which wavelength of light are human eyes most sensitive to?
- Name 5 artists with the word “little” or “lil” in their name.
- Who was the first director of MTL?
- What is the total square footage of MIT.nano?
- What is the shortcut for a backward search in the GNU Nano text editor?
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In which year was the Northeast Microelectronic Coalition formed?
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Which MIT president, acting or past, also served as an MITL director?
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Name the largest coral reef in the world and where it is located.
Nobody at my table knew what “CHIPS” stood for, so we guessed “creating happy international packaged semiconductors”. Somehow, this still sounds more realistic than the real answer.
After dinner, there was an “academia vs. industry” panel, with four MIT professors and three industry representatives from Lam Research, IBM, and GlobalFoundries:
- Q: “From an R&D perspective, how does industry benefit from the relative freedom and higher risk tolerance of academic research?”
- Lam Research: Academic research is cool because it helps them identify potentially disruptive technologies from the earliest stages of development, like soft robotics for equipment maintenance. Also, universities are uniquely set up to synthesize and test a huge range of different chemicals (albeit in small batches), whereas industrial processes are typically optimized for synthesizing a small handful of chemicals.
- IBM: They’re heavily involved in university research (particularly MIT) because “[they] cannot invent everything in industry”. It’s also great for “workforce development” (i.e., recruitment).
- GlobalFoundries: What Lam Research and IBM said.
- Q: “How can universities structure their labs to align with industry needs while still adhering to the fundamental goal of original academic research?”
- Professor Jelena Notaros: Having access to industry know-how and tools often just means that research becomes more efficient. Also, original academic research still happens organically because the fresh minds of grad students naturally come up with new ideas that industry veterans may overlook.
- Professor Song Han: Having access to free GPUs is super helpful for AI research, and the industry needs are typically what the grad students want to research anyway. Having industry connections also helps expose students to real-world problems through internships, which can better inform their future research.
- Professor Duane Boning: It’s also often good not to align completely with industry needs, as orthogonal research directions from industry needs is often how the most disruptive new technologies get created.
- Q: “In your respective sectors, how does the pressure for immediate commercial outcomes influence your research, and does the pressure steer you away from fundamental research toward applied research? How do you balance it?”
- GlobalFoundries and IBM: (Idk I wasn’t paying attention to them, but their answers didn’t answer the question anyway.)
- Lam Research: It’s important to communicate the scope and time frame of projects with academic collaborators. Professors typically want funding for at least one year, which limits how short-term/immediate the research can be. Longer-term roadmaps allow for more fundamental research, and that’s often also what companies want anyway without realizing it.
- Professor Song Han: “We use short-term projects to generate cash flow for our long-term projects.”
(I stopped paying attention at this point because it was getting late and I was still physically exhausted from snowboarding earlier today. I think they just talked about the importance of recruitment until the end of the panel.)
It’s probably time for me to go to sleep now, so I’ll see you all tomorrow at 9 AM when the conference switches gear into academic mode.
Day 1, 9:45 PM (Andi)
Oh actually, one more thing before I go – one of my friends mentioned that the hotel looks a lot like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, and now I can’t unsee it.
Day 2, 7:30 AM (Andi)
1.5 hours before the conference begins! Until then, check out this year’s entries for the MTL photo competition:
I think #15 (“Hitting the slopes at MARC”) looks the coolest, but #2 (“SEM photo of unknown particle on plastic substrate which is ruining my device ☹“) best captures the essence of microelectronics research.