NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MATERIALS

Visit the Materials360 Plus® and the Materials News pages on the MRS Website for continually updated research news and features Image in FocusNano Spaghetti & Meatballs Colorized and overlaid scanning electron microscope images of "Spaghetti & Meatballs" made out of Au and Si. The 'spaghetti' is a collection of electrodeposited...

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Novellus Advances PVD TaN Barrier Film

TOP STORY... May 28, 2009Novellus said its has developed a conformal hollow cathode magnetron (HCM) PVD technology, called IONX XL, which provides the very thin barrier layers needed for the copper interconnects at the 3X node. The barrier film challenge is causing some companies to consider a shift from planar PVD to the more expensive CVD approach,...

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Materials Engineers wants to keep up with you on Twitter

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Downturn to Spur Shift to 3-D Packaging

TOP STORY... May 27, 2009The past several semiconductor downturns have resulted in transitions from one generation of packaging to the next. This one's no exception. "Out of this downturn, we're rapidly shifting from 2-D to  3-D packaging," says Jim Walker, vice president of semiconductor manufacturing research at Gartner Inc. Read more >>...

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Sanyo Pushes c-Si Solar Cell to 23% Conversion Efficiency

TOP STORY... May 26, 2009 Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. has broken its own record for the highest energy conversion efficiency for a crystalline silicon solar cell in a practical size, beating its previous efficiency by almost a full percentage point. The cell is a hybrid cell composed of a single thin c-Si wafer sandwiched by ultrathin amorphous silicon...

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Flip-Chip Packaging Becomes Competitive

TOP STORY... May 19, 2009Flip-chip packaging is gradually replacing the once-dominant wire-bonded technology in products ranging from digital cameras to servers, writes Contributing Editor Sally Cole Johnson in the May issue of Semiconductor International. Flip-chip's appeal is increasing as its cost competitiveness with wire bonding improves in the...

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Infrastructure Still Inhibits 3-D ICs

TOP STORY... May 20, 2009Contributing Editor Ruth DeJule examines the status of 3-D technologies, including obstacles that may be slowing down the commercialization process. "The industry is debating between wafer-to-wafer and die-to-wafer stacking, with the process requirements of high assembly yield, and low complexity and cost," DeJule writes. "The...

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Metrologists: Measure Twice, Process Once

TOP STORY... May 18, 2009IBM's T.C. Chen, Alain Diebold of CNSE, and J. Alexander Liddle of NIST were among the metrology experts who spoke at the 2009 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics. "Dimensions are approaching atomistic and quantum mechanical boundaries," said Chen, vice president of science...

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NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MATERIALS

- from Materials Research Society, • Nitrogen n-dopes graphene• Two metals better than one for fuel cell catalysts• Core structure suppresses blinking in quantum dots• Smallest incandescent lamp uses single C-nanotube • DNA twisted into boxes  more.......

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Materials in Focus

- from  Materials Research Society, Nitrogen n-dopes graphene It is relatively easy to p-dope graphene using adsorbates and oxygen groups on edges, but for real-world applications, scientists need to be able to make n-doped material too. This is more difficult because special strategies are needed. A research team has now shown that graphene can be n-doped through high-power electrical joule heating in ammonia gas. They then made an n-type graphene FET that operates at room temperature....

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Emtec Microscope Tilts Light Source

TOP STORY... May 12, 2009 for Semiconductor international Japan-based Emtec Co. Ltd. has developed an optical microscope that uses a slightly tilted light source to observe transparent surfaces and other objects that are difficult to see with a conventional microscope. The microscope is targeted at viewing defects on ICs, molded packages, LCD...

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Freescale Taking Nanocrystal Flash to Production

TOP STORY... May 11, 2009 After five years of technology development, Freescale said it is ready to move nanocrystal flash to the product stage for its MCU product line. At the International Memory Workshop (IMW) being held this week in Monterey, Calif., Freescale will detail progress in its nanocrystal flash development program, including reliability...

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Novellus Rolls UV-Absorbing Dielectrics

TOP STORY... May 7, 2009 Novellus said it has developed a dense ultralow-k and diffusion barrier stack that absorbs ultraviolet radiation from UV thermal processing steps. The UV-absorbing films protect the compressive strain that enhances device performance, Novellus said. The solution is being offered as an alternative to porous dielectric...

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latest news from MaterialsToday

from MaterialsToday  Super battery! The storage of electrical energy at high charge and discharge rate is an important technology in today's society. It can enable hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and provide back-up for wind and solar energy.April 30, 2009 Printable power using carbon nanotube supercapacitors...

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Mentor Enhancing Yield Diagnostics Tool

TOP STORY... May 6, 2009 Mentor Graphics is adding more powerful statistical analysis techniques to its yield diagnostics tool, Yield Assist. The diagnostics method combines the more-complex, compressed data available from logic testers with information from logic netlists and design layouts. The technique can narrow down problem areas on the...

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2009 IITC to Consider Metals for 22 nm

TOP STORY... May 4, 2009 Researchers at the International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC), planned for June 1-3 in Sapporo, Japan, will present new metallization and processing schemes for contacts, barrier layers, wetting agents and copper silicides. The Sapporo IITC meeting will feature studies of copper contacts, ruthenium nitride...

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NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MATERIALS

Visit the Materials360® Plus and the Materials News pages on the MRS Website for continually updated research news and features Image in FocusClandestine Attraction of a Transparent Ceramic The valence electron density of the hexagonal layered transparent conductor indium zinc oxide, calculated within density functional theory...

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Soitec Ready With Ultrathin SOI Wafers

David Lammers, News Editor -- Semiconductor International, 7/16/2008 Soitec has qualified silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers with ultrathin buried oxide (BOX) and silicon layers. The SOI wafers -- named XUT+ to describe the ultrathin top silicon and BOX layers -- are aimed at both partially depleted (PD) and fully depleted (FD) devices, including multi-gate...

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Sp3 Diamond Revs SOD Wafer Production

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 4/14/2009 Sp3 Diamond Technologies Inc. is taking orders for 2 and 4 in. silicon-on-diamond (SOD) wafers for use in production of high-power ICs. The company is accelerating development of 6 in. wafers for use as laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) substrates. The SOD wafers, which have top layers of GaN compounds, deliver higher thermal conductivity at a lower cost than existing SiC alternatives to GaN. More...

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Inlustra Starts Nonpolar GaN Production

David Lammers, News Editor -- Semiconductor International, 4/14/2009 Inlustra said it is beginning to deliver nonpolar GaN substrates to customers. Started in 2005 as a spin-out from UC Santa Barbara, the company says it has developed proprietary techniques to significantly reduce the number of defects in nonpolar GaN substrates, resulting in improved...

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