Advanced processing and prototyping centre launched
ATDF subsidiary of SEMATECH, and The University of Texas at Austin (UT), have joined forces to create the Advanced Processing and Prototyping Centre (AP2C), a highly specialised R&D program designed to speed leading-edge nanoelectronic technology to the marketplace.
Funded with an approximately $5 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the AP2C will investigate a wide range of revolutionary devices and materials which incorporate advanced microchip manufacturing technologies.
"The AP2C fits in well with the plans of Governor Perry and the UT System to develop a state and federal partnership for advancing nanotechnology in Texas," said Robert Barnhill, UT System vice-chancellor for Research and Technology Transfer.
Added Sanjay Banerjee, director of the UT Microelectronics Research Centre and lead university researcher for the AP2C: "This new centre is an excellent way to encourage promising research ideas, develop them, and then accelerate the best ones to quicken the pace of technology." Said Dave Anderson, ATDF general manager.
"Continuous advancements in leading edge and emerging technology areas are critical for future generations of the even more intense information-processing and storage needed to enable personalised medicine, on-demand entertainment, fully virtualised retail commerce, and the most sophisticated military and homeland security systems,"
"With the AP2C we can develop and test the new materials and innovative device structures and processing methods that will enable the electronics industry to accelerate, as well as drive the over spill benefits into other industries, such as biotechnology and energy."
Overall, AP2C projects will involve use of nanowires, silicon-germanium-carbon structures, imprint lithography, and substrates composed of high-mobility compound semiconductors bonded with silicon for advanced complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Other targeted technologies will include directed self-assembly for patterning, hybrid composite materials, spintronics memory, quantum transport and optical interconnects.
Specific AP2C projects initially will include:
* Fabrication of nanoscale field-effect transistors (FETs) composed of germanium nanowires
* Incorporation of carbon in silicon and germanium substrates to enable III-V compound semiconductors to be incorporated in semiconductor devices on a silicon wafer
* Step-and-flash imprint lithography, a revolutionary technology which uses a mould-like template to "stamp" extremely small structures into microchips or other nanotechnology or biotechnology devices
* Circuit patterning through directed self-assembly, an experimental way of "growing" circuit patterns directly on a chip
* Quantum transport, based on quantum mechanics to model the movement of electrons through nanoelectronics device switches
* Optical interconnects, involving the use of lasers instead of copper or other metals to connect devices on a chip
"AP2C will help define the future shape of nanoelectronics, and will allow our industry and other industries that have traditionally benefited from advancements in smaller, faster, innovative chip manufacturing capabilities, to continue accelerating forward," said Randy Goodall, director of External Programs for SEMATECH. "The resulting productivity in research, manufacturing, business and personal life will, in turn, benefit the industries and careers of the future – keeping Texas in the race for leadership in technology innovation."
