POLICY NEWS
Chips show the strain
Flexible future PLASTIC ELECTRONICS
IMEC heads for 300 mm
technologies, but without any
Linköping University in Sweden is to get a new national center for organic and polymer electronics research. The $3.6 million Center for Organic Electronics (COE) will receive funding from the Foundation for Strategic Research in recognition of Linköping’s international reputation in this field. COE will pull in staff from across the university, including William Salaneck and Mats Fahlman (who bring expertise in spectroscopy), Magnus Berggren and Olle Inganäs (patterning of components), Sven Stafström (theoretical modeling), and Robert Forchheimer (system simulation). The center will be headed up by Inganäs and Berggren. The main focus of research will be on developing printing methods for organic electronics, as well as exploring the options for using self-organizing nanostructures. The Swedish Research Council has also granted a further $450 000 award for an electronic paper printing press as part of the effort. The collaborative effort will also bring in researchers from Chalmers Institute of Technology, Göteborg, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Lund University.
compatibility problems, according to
Further information: www.liu.se
IMEC, the Belgian semiconductor research lab, has begun construction work on a new cleanroom for processing 300 mm wafers. The $90 million, 200 000 m2 facility will take 18 months to complete and should go on-line mid-2005. Local government is providing $40 million towards the development at IMEC’s existing facility in Leuven. “This 300 mm research facility will allow us...to perform world-class research on the most advanced process steps, materials, and devices for the sub-45 nm mode and around, above and beside CMOS,” says IMEC’s president and CEO Gilbert Declerck.
Alliance and merger
Lithography runs ahead
DISPLAYS
MICROELECTRONICS
DuPont Displays and Universal Display Corporation (UDC) have reached an agreement to develop a new generation of soluble organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials and technologies. DuPont has also licensed UDC’s background phosphorescent emitter, transparent cathode, and ink-jet printing technologies for use in its products. As a result, DuPont aims to increase its OLED manufacturing capability, while UDC will be able to license any technological results from the collaboration to third parties. “This collaboration will help accelerate and expand the creation of innovative solutions for OLED technology in materials performance and manufacturing cost,” explains Steve Abramson, president and COO of UDC. “This is a boost for the OLED market and right in line with DuPont Displays’ business strategy to offer a broad product roadmap,” adds the company’s CEO Chet Pribonic. Another part of DuPont Displays’ strategy is the merging of DuPont Holographic and Polar Vision. The newly formed business unit, Display Solutions, will focus on new technologies to improve flat panel display performance in demanding applications. In particular, Display Solutions will focus on light management, sunlight readability, and more rugged devices for extreme environmental conditions in products such as holographic reflectors, bonded-glass enhancements, high-brightness backlight systems, and fully-integrated display modules. “What excites me,” says Peter Compo, president of the new business unit, “is our ability to engineer elegant solutions for our customers, which will not result in dramatic increases in power consumption and heat, or reduce the life of the display.”
The University at Albany, New York, and International SEMATECH have agreed a joint five-year program to develop next-generation lithography. SEMATECH will undertake a program in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography at the university’s new 300 mm wafer cleanroom complex, to be known as ‘International SEMATECH North’. The technical definition of the program, execution, management, and staff will come from SEMATECH, while the university will provide facilities, funding leverage, and additional staff. The two will share the running of the program and the procurement of equipment, materials, and contract R&D. “Our first tools arrived in February and our staff is set to hit the ground running,” says SEMATECH EUV program manager, Kevin Kemp. The goal is to have EUV lithography infrastructure in place and ready for introduction in four years’ time.
MICROELECTRONICS The University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and Atmel have joined forces to develop next-generation strained Si technology for low power chips, analog, and low noise RF components. This type of device could compete at the boundaries of high performance, but costly, technologies based on GaAs. The technology uses a SiGe layer to induce strain in a thin Si layer, which can be tailored by the Ge content. Introducing strain increases electron mobility, enabling higher currents in the final transistors. Strained Si could compete with more expensive GaAs
MICROELECTRONICS
its proponents. “We have the potential here for developing a brand new process that will give us cheaper and faster chips,” explains Atmel managing director Craig McInnes. “These will be the market leaders of tomorrow.” A team of five researchers from the University of Newcastle, led by Anthony O’Neill, will be based at Atmel’s North Tyneside semiconductor facility. “This is really getting research out of the lab into the commercial world,” says O’Neill. “Working with Atmel will allow us to take the product from the drawing board to marketable reality a lot quicker than relying on the limited resources available to universities.” The company will supply manufacturing know-how to speed up the development process. The two sides will share rewards of the collaboration, if it leads to a working technology. “Getting products to market quickly is vital in the fast-moving world of semiconductor manufacturing and development,” explains O’Neill. “If we are successful, we will have a world first made on Tyneside.”
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April 2003