News Article
ALD JV announced
Research cooperation on ultra-thin films by Fraunhofer CNT and TU Dresden
The Fraunhofer Centre Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) develops advanced process steps for manufacturing in nanoelectronic applications on 300 mm wafers. The Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is one of the key process technologies of the institute. In the ever growing market of thin film technology, ALD plays a unique role. The self-limited deposition of atomic layers enables conformal coating of arbitrary surfaces and allows exact thickness control on atomic level. ALD is the method of choice, especially when conventional deposition technologies (e.g. CVD, PVD) are at their limits in terms of step coverage and thickness uniformity.
Industrial adoption of the ALD technology is already on its way for applications in nanoelectronic devices with aggressive architectures such as three dimensional metal-insulator-metal capacitors (3D MIM Caps) for stand-alone and embedded DRAM as well as for leading edge CMOS highk/ metal gate transistor technology. Today, in leading edge commodity and high-end memory and logic products on 300 mm wafers at least one film is generated by ALD. This technology is actually driving the development forward for the next generation of technology nodes and has even contributed to accelerate Moore´s Law.
Besides the application in nanoelectronics, ALD is a key enabling technology for the innovation in several technological fields of nanotechnologies, but driven by the semiconductor industry. ALD has been able to gain a broader spectrum of applications, e. g. in the photo voltaic industry. The concept of ALD Lab Dresden is to join forces between two institutes with long term experience in ALD in Dresden: The Institute of Semiconductor and Microsystems Technology (IHM) at Technical University of Dresden (Prof. Johann Bartha) and the ALD group at Fraunhofer CNT (Dr. Jonas Sundqvist). Under the umbrella organization of “ALD Lab Dresden”, they seek to formalize the collaboration in the field of ALD, which already exists since 5 years.
“Together we are developing new ALD precursors, processes and process technologies with focus on the semiconductor and photovoltaic industry” says Dr. Jonas Sundqvist, ALD expert at Fraunhofer CNT. “Using the advanced in-situ and clustered analytics at IHM we can gain a deeper understanding of the ALD process. Such information is proven most beneficial when scaling up research results for production level ALD processing. For the scale up task we will use both custom made equipment of common design available at both our Labs, and state of the art production proven ALD processing equipment, Pulsar 3000 and A412 Large Batch ALD from ASM that is available at Fraunhofer CNT.”
Working in close collaboration with chemical suppliers, e.g. Air Liquide, the ALD Lab Dresden will develop new precursors and processes for the industry. By using Fraunhofer CNT’s production level Fab infrastructure, the ALD Lab Dresden will be able to transfer research results most efficient into a manufacturing environment by offering pre-qualified ALD process technology and precursors for regional and global industrial customers.
In addition to that, ALD Lab Dresden will develop new ALD processes for new and promising nanoelectronic materials for the semiconductor industry on leading edge devices together with NaMLab (Dr. Uwe Schroeder), an associated institute and research organization of TU Dresden. One recent example is a joint research project with NaMLab and Globalfoundries, focusing on the development of future high-k gate dielectric transistors and a feasibility study for ferroelectric storage – “HEIKO”. The project is funded by the Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) and the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE).
Industrial adoption of the ALD technology is already on its way for applications in nanoelectronic devices with aggressive architectures such as three dimensional metal-insulator-metal capacitors (3D MIM Caps) for stand-alone and embedded DRAM as well as for leading edge CMOS highk/ metal gate transistor technology. Today, in leading edge commodity and high-end memory and logic products on 300 mm wafers at least one film is generated by ALD. This technology is actually driving the development forward for the next generation of technology nodes and has even contributed to accelerate Moore´s Law.
Besides the application in nanoelectronics, ALD is a key enabling technology for the innovation in several technological fields of nanotechnologies, but driven by the semiconductor industry. ALD has been able to gain a broader spectrum of applications, e. g. in the photo voltaic industry. The concept of ALD Lab Dresden is to join forces between two institutes with long term experience in ALD in Dresden: The Institute of Semiconductor and Microsystems Technology (IHM) at Technical University of Dresden (Prof. Johann Bartha) and the ALD group at Fraunhofer CNT (Dr. Jonas Sundqvist). Under the umbrella organization of “ALD Lab Dresden”, they seek to formalize the collaboration in the field of ALD, which already exists since 5 years.
“Together we are developing new ALD precursors, processes and process technologies with focus on the semiconductor and photovoltaic industry” says Dr. Jonas Sundqvist, ALD expert at Fraunhofer CNT. “Using the advanced in-situ and clustered analytics at IHM we can gain a deeper understanding of the ALD process. Such information is proven most beneficial when scaling up research results for production level ALD processing. For the scale up task we will use both custom made equipment of common design available at both our Labs, and state of the art production proven ALD processing equipment, Pulsar 3000 and A412 Large Batch ALD from ASM that is available at Fraunhofer CNT.”
Working in close collaboration with chemical suppliers, e.g. Air Liquide, the ALD Lab Dresden will develop new precursors and processes for the industry. By using Fraunhofer CNT’s production level Fab infrastructure, the ALD Lab Dresden will be able to transfer research results most efficient into a manufacturing environment by offering pre-qualified ALD process technology and precursors for regional and global industrial customers.
In addition to that, ALD Lab Dresden will develop new ALD processes for new and promising nanoelectronic materials for the semiconductor industry on leading edge devices together with NaMLab (Dr. Uwe Schroeder), an associated institute and research organization of TU Dresden. One recent example is a joint research project with NaMLab and Globalfoundries, focusing on the development of future high-k gate dielectric transistors and a feasibility study for ferroelectric storage – “HEIKO”. The project is funded by the Sächsische Aufbaubank (SAB) and the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE).
