Trikon wins mag-RAM tool development award
"Non-volatile memory is one of the hot topics in the nanotechnology industry and MRAM is the leading candidate in that field as it offers high density, low power consumption and near unlimited read/write cycles," says Keith Buchanan, project manager at Trikon. "BIBD technology has significant benefits for the building of the complex film stacks used in MRAM and this award recognises the potential. Trikon has over 25 years of experience in physical vapour deposition (PVD) and BIBD is a form of PVD calling on many of the core abilities of Trikon such as high vacuum engineering, process clustering and wafer handling."
MRAM memory devices consist of two ferromagnetic layers separated by thin insulating layers. Information is stored as "0's" and "1's" based on controllable directions of magnetisation. MRAM devices are built from stacks of multiple films nanometres thick. Makers need equipment capable of depositing layers with exact control of quality, thickness and smoothness, from a wide range of exotic materials with more added to the list as the technology develops.
BIBD offers significant benefits over magnetron sputtering approaches on account of its independent control of ion energy and flux to maintain critical film properties. Other potential deposition methods include atomic layer deposition (ALD). Trikon maintains that ALD is unable to match the wide flexibility of IBD - the technique used to build the first MRAM devices. The IBD process needs to be scaled to 300mm, however. The Trikon project aims at a 300mm tool capable of building the full stack plus insulator layers.
MRAM technology was first developed in the 1990s. Companies such as Motorola and Infineon have recently announced prototype production. These companies hope that these new non-volatile memories will displace flash memory in the medium term, with potential for breakthrough as a DRAM replacement in the long term (2010 and beyond).
The Trikon award is part of the first allocation under the UK Department of Trade and Industry's $162mn Micro and Nanotechnology Manufacturing Initiative (MNTI) launched in 2003, with further grants to be made over the next five years.
Other projects in the first allocation included Dynex Semiconductor working on improved power electronic contact technology (IMPECT, GBP0.60mn); Applied Microengineering working on low temperature bonding and polymer embossing, nano-lithography and structures (LOBEL, GBP0.68mn); Thomas Swan Nano Instruments working on nanoelectronics production of wafer-scale carbon nanotubes and nanowires (GBP1.42mn); Qinetiq working on narrow band-gap spintronic devices for information technology (GBP1.39mn); and Taylor Hobson working on semiconductor and optical layer analysis and definition using interference microscopy (SOLADIM, GBP1.02mn).
