NEWS EDITOR’S CHOICE ADVANCING NANOELECTRONICS INFRASTRUCTURES IN EUROPE A
new project has gone underway opening the doors to the world’s
most advanced nanoelectronics infrastructures in Europe. Tyndall National Institute in Ireland, CEA- Leti in France and imec in Belgium, leading European nanoelectronics institutes, have entered into a collaborative open-access project called ASCENT (Access to European Nanoelectronics Network), to mobilise European research capabilities like never before. The €4.7 million project will
make the unique research infrastructure of three of Europe’s premier research centres available to the nanoelectronics modelling- and-characterisation research community.
The project will share best
scientific and technological practices, form a knowledge- innovation hub, train new researchers in advanced methodologies and establish a first-class research network of advanced technology designers, modellers and manufacturers in Europe. All this will strengthen Europe’s knowledge in the integral area of nanoelectronics research. The three partners will provide researchers access to advanced device data, test chips and characterisation equipment. This access programme will enable the research community to explore exciting new developments in industry and meet the challenges
created in an ever-evolving and demanding digital world. The partners’ respective facilities are truly world-class, representing over €2 billion of combined research infrastructure with unique credentials in advanced semiconductor processing, nanofabrication, heterogeneous and 3D integration, electrical characterisation and atomistic and TCAD modelling. This is the first time that access to these state-of-the-art devices and test structures will become available anywhere in the world. The project will engage industry directly through an ‘Industry Innovation Committee’
www.imec.be
FUNDING SECURED FOR CMOS BASED SENSOR RESEARCH
Crocus Technology has secured $21M (€19M) in funding from new and existing international investors that include: NanoDimension, Innovation Capital, IdInvest Partners, Ventech, Sofinnova, CEA Investissement, Rusnano and Industrial Investor Group. Kreos Capital also backed the round because of Crocus’ strong prospects. It is the second time that this growth debt provider has helped finance Crocus’ MLU strategy. The upswing in prospects stems from
NEW OPTICAL MICROMETER WITH HTML5 INTERFACE
The optoCONTROL 2520 high performance, self-contained optical laser micrometer from Micro-Epsilon has been upgraded with several new features that simplify user set-up and configuration. The company’s laser micrometer with integrated controller and Ethernet interface features a high precision, 46mm measuring range and a maximum transmitter/receiver distance of up to 2m. The web browser interface now runs on HTML5 instead of Java, which means improved stability and reliability. This laser micrometer now runs on HTML5 and can be operated from a smartphone. A measurement
chart displays limit values. In addition, the system provides various averaging and filter methods, as well as statistical features. Up to eight segments can be measured and output simultaneously. Its sensors measure the dimensions, edges or gaps on a target using the ThruBeam ‘shadow’ principle. The transmitter produces a parallel light curtain that is transmitted via a lens arrangement into the receiving unit. The beam is interrupted if there is an object in the light path. The CCD camera in the receiver unit measures the ‘target’ contour formed by the shadow and outputs this as a geometrical value. The target object can be in any position within the light curtain. The smallest detectable diameter of the target object is approximately 0.5mm, which means the system can be used to measure small gaps or objects such as IC pins and pin strips in electronics production. The sensor is also suitable for detecting large objects, performing large distance measurements, counting tasks and roundness measurement. Up to eight segments of the target can be measured and output simultaneously. As well as having an extremely compact design, this laser micrometer also offers high accuracy and a
maximum transmitter to receiver gap of 2 metres, which, allows the target to be positioned at any point in the gap.
Micro-Epsilon
www.micro-epsilon.co.uk
the important performance advantages that the company’s proprietary MLU technology, a disruptive CMOS-based rugged magnetic technology, brings to its magnetic sensors. These magnetic sensors have significant attributes that support applications where high sensitivity, high temperature, low noise and low cost are key, such as smart metering, power management and solutions for IoT (Internet of Things).
www.crocus-technology.com
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Applied Materials, Inc. are collaborating on a development program to optimise the chemical-mechanical planarisation (CMP) process through silicon characterisation and modeling for advanced-node designs at 14 nanometer (nm) and below. The program allows design teams to predict the impact of CMP on both functional yield and parametric yield, and for manufacturing teams to boost planarisation performance, which is increasingly critical for advanced FinFET architectures.
www.cadence.com CPI INSTALL WORLD LEADING ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION SYSTEMS
The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) has recently installed and commissioned two world leading atomic layer deposition tools from Beneq for the development of conformal nano-scale coatings used for electronic and optoelectronic device and encapsulation based applications. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is applied as a
specialist barrier coating technique used for the protection of optoelectronic devices and is being utilised by CPI to add moisture ultra-barrier protection layers to flexible polymer substrates used to produce optoelectronic devices using sensitive active electronic materials. Thin films produced using the ALD method are cost efficient, defect free and completely conformal, thus
/ MICROMATTERS
providing superior barriers and surface passivation compared with other deposition techniques. These properties make them ideal for numerous kinds of critical applications that utilise flexible films such as Organic Light Emitting Devices (OLED), flexible display screens, photovoltaic cells and wearable electronics to name but a few. As the cost of conventional multilayer barrier
films is typically prohibitively high for large area applications and a thin layer of inorganic barrier film produced using roll to roll ALD technology provides a feasible cost effective solution for the commercialisation of these novel applications.
CPI
www.uk-cpi.com MICROMATTERS | SUMMER 2015 7
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