Cenamps to provide ALD foundry service with the support of Oxford Instruments
Cenamps, a national centre for emerging technologies, is working with Oxford Instruments to establish a UK open access foundry service, based in the North East of England.
This new service will employ a thin film deposition technique called Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), which is rapidly being adopted by the main stream semiconductor device manufacturers.The Cenamps ALD Foundry is a first of its kind in the UK, giving customers the opportunity to explore the commercial applications of ALD films. In order to facilitate this, Cenamps is installing the FlexAL ALD tool manufactured by Oxford Instruments in a specially-designed clean-room in Newcastle.
Atomic Layer Deposition is a technology that is capable of depositing a large variety of ultra-thin films atomic layer by atomic layer. It offers the opportunity to create precisely controlled structures for advanced semiconductor and other nanotechnology applications. It has the ability to deposit material conformably into high aspect ratio features.
ALD can be applied in many technological areas including, but not limited to, semiconductor technology, micro-mechanical devices, nanotechnology, opto-electronics, and plastic electronics.
Dr David Robbins, Chief Technology Officer for Cenamps, said: "This ALD foundry service is aimed at UK and international organisations who want to research and trial the precisely controlled and conformal coatings that ALD can offer. The Oxford Instruments FlexAL tool is ideal for our foundry service because its versatile design allows us to offer a wide range of ALD coatings to our customers."
Speaking about the decision to work alongside Cenamps on ALD process development, Chris Hodson, Applications Specialist at Oxford Instruments said: "ALD has both established and many new exciting application areas. We see the Cenamps foundry service as key to realising the benefits ALD can bring to these new areas, by enabling organisations to explore ALD at low commercial risk. For this reason we are supporting the Cenamps foundry service and believe it will enable product innovation in a range of industries."
The Cenamps ALD foundry service will begin operations in July 2007.
Dr Robbins said: "This is great news for the North East of England, because it creates a centre for ALD coating technology that is readily accessible to regional companies and research organisations and at the same time is aiming to build an international customer base."
