Another trend shows small equipment companies are leading the move into the MST/MEMS specialized equipment market, while large traditional semiconductor equipment companies continue to be hesitant. Generally, the supporting infrastructure for some technologies is well developed, including for example equipment for wafer bonding and deep reactive ion etching (DRIE).
(November 13, 2003) West Lafayetter, Ind.—A research team led by engineers at Purdue University and physicists at the University of Chicago has made a discovery about the formation of drops that could lead to new methods for making threads, wires and particles only a few nanometers wide.
Such nano-threads, wires and particles could, in turn, have numerous applications, including new kinds of composite materials, electronic circuits and pharmaceutical products, claims Osman Basaran, a professor in Purdue’s School of Chemical Engineering.