Category Archives: Materials and Equipment

According to a subcommittee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Science Board, the nation’s food supply is at risk, as are the regulatory systems that oversee the nation’s drug and device supplies. In a report presented in December, the subcommittee attributed the deficiencies to increased demands on FDA and resources that have not increased in proportion to those demands. Committee members conclude that “this imbalance is imposing a significant risk to the integrity of the food, drug, cosmetic, and device regulatory system, and hence the safety of the public.”

The result of a year-long review by a distinguished panel of experts, the subcommittee’s 300-page report concludes that the state of FDA’s scientific and regulatory programs could not be separated from the lack of resources. It urged funds to support the agency’s scientific base, hire a broadly capable scientific workforce, and build a sophisticated, modern information technology infrastructure.

Upon the report’s release, Don Kennedy, PhD, a former FDA commissioner and editor-in-chief of Science magazine, and also a member of the FDA Alliance, an advocacy organization formed in 2006, commented that “FDA can’t improve its science, prepare for the future, or protect American consumers without significant additional resources. Congress is negotiating FDA’s FY 2008 [current year] budget right now and can start to fix this critical problem.”

The cry for more FDA resources was echoed by the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, which comprises patient groups, non-profit organizations, consumer and public health advocates, and innovative companies
with the goal of working alongside policymakers to bolster and preserve public confidence in FDA. “Over the last decade, complex scientific advances, globalization, and challenging new safety issues have combined to multiply the responsibilities of the FDA. As this new report makes clear, our expectations cannot exceed the resources we give FDA to accomplish its mission. In this regard, more is definitely better,” said Mark McClellan, MD, former FDA commissioner and chairman of the new Reagan-Udall Institute.

Particles

compiled by Carrie Meadows
USP <797> revisions now available
The U.S. Pharmacopeia has posted the Revision Bulletin containing changes to General Chapter Pharmaceutical Compounding–Sterile Preparations <797> on its web site at http://www.usp.org/USPNF/pf/generalChapter797.html. The revisions will become official on June 1, 2008, and will be included in USP 32

Quality Matters


January 1, 2008

I always associate quality with building a house. Because my dad was a contractor, each of his children learned about reading blueprints, controlling construction costs, choosing compatible materials, and measuring more than once before doing anything. “Measure twice, cut once,” he repeated. The same principals applied regardless of the project, so that the building would satisfy the user and stand up to usage over time.

One of the most interesting turnarounds in quality as applied to manufacturing began in Japan in 1950 when the Occupation Force restructured Japan’s communications equipment industry. W. Edwards Deming provided a seminar on statistical quality control (SQC). Within a decade the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers had trained 20,000 engineers in SQC methods. Now Fujitsu’s slogan is, “Quality built-in with cost and performance as prime consideration.” And Sony defines a next-generation product is “one that is going to be half the size and half the price at the same performance of the existing one.” In electronics, even though products are expected to be smaller in each generation, quality and reliability go hand-in hand.

Quality is connected to measuring and controlling error. The absence of error in production is integral to building a reliable product. For instance, early this January, The American Society for Quality (ASQ) reported that recent product recalls of Chinese imports reflects poor responsibility on the part of U.S. importers. “Companies are so used to dealing with suppliers in the United States or Europe who comply with their specifications, that they aren’t taking into account that the whole concept of quality systems is a radically new thing to many foreign suppliers in countries like China,” says Randy Goodden, chair of ASQ’s Product Safety & Liability Prevention Interest Group.

Quality contol begins with those involved in manufacturing. For example, at Intel’s plant in China, methods and practices are taught in the same manner as is other manufacturing locations. The laws and cultural practices in China and other countries can not be expected to change to suit another country’s rules and regulations. However, quality control, quality designs, statistical measurements and methods can and must be taught in individual plant operations.

On March 17 – 19, 2008, in San Jose, CA, the International Society for Quality Electronic Design will hold its 9th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED). The conference provides a forum for R&D, application of design techniques and methods, design processes, and tools that address issues that impact the quality of designs into integrated circuits. As devices get smaller and more integrated, the progress and quality of EDA tools and design methodologies is surpassed. Therefore, the EDA industry should focus on performance, timing, area, product yield, manufacturing, design for reliability, design for yield, and design for manufacturability.

The need for quality education in electronics took hold under Deming. Now it’s up to each manufacturer, no matter the country, to educate employees.

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GAIL FLOWER
Editor-in-Chief

By Bill Perry, Nanomix

Medical diagnostics account for just 1% of healthcare spending, yet it is the basis for 60% of all healthcare decision-making. Standard medical detection technologies have severe shortcomings, however. Those that provide high-value, quantitative results are optical systems and require that the patient sample be moved to a laboratory and subjected to complex tests run by highly trained staff. In many cases, valuable diagnostic information is not practical for routine use due to the cost and timing of generating a result.

In parallel, an explosion of highly valuable biomarker panels is driving a change from empirically based, trial-and-error medicine, to more evidence-based, personalized solutions. These biomarkers require a detection technology that enables simple, cost-effective, point-of-care results for critical decision-making.

Thankfully, significant breakthroughs in medical diagnostic applications that leverage the unique properties of nanomaterials are coming to market. As they do, they are expanding the impact of nano across a variety of life-science applications. An example is the Sensation detection platform from Nanomix, which performs direct, electronic, label-free detection of gases and biomarkers. The approach uses no light emission so the chemistry and the reader device are vastly simplified. This enables handheld diagnostics with a rapid time-to-result at a much lower cost than traditional methods. Primary applications are point-of-care respiratory and biomarker detection, where low power consumption, small size, and ultra-sensitivity offer performance advantages and unprecedented access to critical information.


A mesh of carbon nanotubes traps analyte and triggers change in the electronic characteristics of the detection device corresponding to analyte concentration. Arrays on silicon and plastic substrates use scalable and inexpensive manufacturing techniques.
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Sensation is based on random networks of carbon nanotubes paired with electronics in a chip or plastic detection device. Changes in the electronic characteristics of the devices correspond to the amount of analyte present. These devices are arrayed on silicon and plastic substrates using scalable and inexpensive manufacturing techniques. The arrays enable multi-plexed, multi-analyte detection and pattern analysis for ultra-sensitive, specific, and reproducible results.

The Nanomix asthma monitor in development is a small, inexpensive unit that measures the level of nitric oxide (NO) in exhaled breath. This provides a measure of airway inflammation that could significantly improve diagnosis and treatment for the 300 million people worldwide affected by this disease. Asthma is the number-one chronic childhood disease and the number-one reason for children to visit a hospital emergency room. Regular, cost-effective monitoring of NO could allow reduction in needed medicines such as inhaled corticosteroids, reduction of traumatic and costly asthma attacks, and monitoring of the progression and regression of the disease pre-symptomatically, thus enabling a whole range of new medical decision-making. Sufferers have been underserved by existing patient-monitoring approaches that are not objective and are effort-dependent, or costly and complicated.

Analysis of various biomarkers in human breath is an enormous opportunity for Sensation technology. Diseases such as virus, lung or breast cancers, liver disease, gastrointestinal problems, and many others can be diagnosed through trace analytes in exhaled breath.

Impressive data has been generated through collaboration for other applications of the technology. For example,

  • Glucose: Development of nano-ink for glucose test strips that will lower test costs and enhance performance;
  • Protein: Diagnosis of conditions such as stroke or heart attack through detection of biomarkers, tracking of fertility and pregnancy through hormone detection; and
  • DNA: Electronic detection of genetically modified organisms in crop samples, and detection of human genetic patterns for diagnosis of infectious diseases, inherited diseases, and drug metabolism.

Bill Perry is VP, business development, marketing, and sales, for Nanomix Inc. (www.nano.com). He can be reached at (510) 428-5302 or [email protected].

December 28, 2007 — George Gruner, founder of Unidym Inc., has been selected as a visionary Technology Pioneer for 2008 by the World Economic Forum and has been invited to speak at the upcoming WEF Technology Pioneers Conference in Davos, Switzerland, this January.

Unidym, a majority-owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Research Corp., develops and manufactures carbon nanotubes for the electronics industry.

The Technology Pioneers 2008 were nominated by the world’s leading technology experts, including venture capitalists, technology companies, academics and media. The final selection from 273 nominees was made by a panel of leading technology experts appointed by the World Economic Forum.

“Unidym is very proud to have Professor Gruner named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum,” said Arthur L. Swift, Arrowhead’s president and chief executive. “This prestigious award is a tribute to the innovative work of Dr. Gruner and the entire research and engineering team at Unidym.

“Carbon nanotubes may be one of the most important emerging technology platforms of the new millennium, and as such, we are gratified by the recognition of our technology leadership.”

“We are very excited about bringing the Applied Precision semiconductor team into our organization,” said Paul F. McLaughlin, chairman and CEO of Rudolph. “This acquisition combines two successful companies with complementary products and technologies, and will accelerate our efforts to be a more complete supplier of back-end equipment and software.”

(December 20, 2007) DUIVEN, The Netherlands
— The restructuring of BE Semiconductor Industries N.V. (Besi), completed this fall, focuses on the centralization of certain global developing, manufacturing, sales, and service activities in order to streamline processes, reduce overhead in the subsidiaries, and improve profitability. The new organizational structure should also facilitate the designing of shared system platforms. Such platforms are scheduled for die bonders and sorting products from Datacon as well as devices for the packaging equipment from Fico.

December 19, 2007 — CVD Equipment Corp. has signed a contract to purchase a 13,300 square foot facility in Ronkonkoma, NY for expansion of its First Nano Laboratory in Q1, 2008. The larger facility will enable First Nano, a division of CVD, to work with multiple startup and established companies in the nano, solar, energy and semiconductor fields for commercialization of their intellectual property.

The laboratory will contain First Nano’s process systems for carbon nanotube, nanowire, nanomaterial and solar applications. Its location — just one block from the company’s design and manufacturing facility — enables close cooperation with First Nano’s process equipment development team to quickly conceive and implement specific process equipment customizations to rapidly advance projects.

“Bright ideas often fail to reach commercialization when an equipment design solution resulting in acceptable quality, productivity and yield is not developed within a given time frame” said Dr. Karlheinz Strobl, VP of Businesses Development. “New ideas and concepts can be prototyped and validated much faster, for less cost, and most importantly at lower risk, by utilizing the available equipment in our laboratory and using the expertise of our process engineers and scientists. This expansion enables more companies to privately validate their concepts and prototype at least part of their production processes thereby accelerating their path to commercialization.”

December 17, 2007 — Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS) has entered a distribution agreement for its carbon nanotubes, BayTubes, with Brenntag Schweizerhall AG.

BMS manufactures carbon nanotubes (CNT) and is seeking industrial partners, the company said in a news release.

“For us it was crucial that Brenntag Schweizerhall AG possess a strong position in the Swiss markets that are important for Bayer MaterialScience,” said Martin Schmid, head of the BayTubes business at BMS.

“Adding BayTubes, the carbon nanotubes of Bayer MaterialScience AG, to our product portfolio is an important element of our future strategic orientation in the field of specialty chemicals,” said graduate engineer Ulf De la Vigne, head of business development at Brenntag Schweizerhall.

Bayer MaterialScience currently has a production capacity of 60 metric tons of BayTubes at the manufacturing site of H. C. Starck GmbH in Laufenburg, Germany. BMS said it plans to erect a large-scale production facility in Germany with an annual capacity of 3,000 metric tons.

December 16, 2007 – At this year’s IEDM, NEC and NEC Electronics unveiled new design technology to optimize ultrashallow-junction channel structures in 32nm-and beyond LSIs, as well as a new composite film to enable a “full low-k” Cu interconnect structure with k reduced nearly a third compared to conventional barrier dielectrics.

In their first paper, NEC and NEC Electronics discussed a new silica-carbon composite (SCC) film that establishes “an ultimate full-low-k Cu interconnect structure” to reduce active power consumption in LSI interconnects, attributed to manipulating the molecular structure and novel plasma-enhanced deposition technology.

The new low-k barrier dielectric SCC film — with k decreased to 35% that of conventional barrier dielectrics — has a composite structure of unsaturated C=C molecular bonds and the conventional silica backbone structure to prevent Cu diffusion into the interlayer dielectric films. The SCC film blocks migration of the Cu atoms (likely captured by the unsaturated carbon bonds). The FLK Cu interconnect incorporates a seamless stack of molecular pore stack low-k film with stable sub-nm-sized pores, deposited continuously on the SCC film on top of the underlying Cu lines, and SCC barrier dielectrics on the Cu lines.

Insulation reliability was deemed “excellent” (measured through a special stabilization process of the Cu metal surface), even after reducing film thickness to several 10s of a nanometer, the companies said. Parasitic capacitance was reduced by 11% compared with low-k Cu interconnects without the SCC film, and reliability was said to be “improved,” though the firms provided no relative comparative value.

The structure is applicable not only to leading-edge CMOS devices (i.e. 32nm node), but also many other conventional CMOS devices for lower power consumption and high reliability — e.g. networking equipment such as broadband wireless terminal devices, multitask servers, and microcomputers for automotive applications, the firms said.

Part of this research was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the MIRAI project.

Also at IEDM, NEC and NEC Electronics said they had developed new technology to visualize impurity distributions in transistors based on e-beam holography technology with “world-leading high spatial resolution.” E-beam holography detects slight perturbation in the wavelength of electrons that results from traversing through silicon crystal with different electrostatic potentials (e.g. n-type vs. p-type silicon), to obtain a nanometer-scale mapping of pn-junctions, the company explained, in a statement.

Addressing the problem of leakage current in advanced CMOS devices requires formation of ultrashallow junctions (USJ) in the channel regions of transistors, but these must be precisely structured to not only suppress leakage current but also prevent parasitic resistance that degrades device performance. That means designing optimum shapes for the USJ based on process simulations (TCAD), and also a highly accurate metrology technique to allow tuning of the process parameters by observing junction structures built into the device. From a process point of view, this requires an ion implantation technique to isolate impurity atoms only in the very shallow region from the surface of the silicon crystals, and an annealing technique with a thermal budget to achieve electrical activation of impurities without letting them redistribute through thermal diffusion.

In their research, the firms said they built pn-junctions with low resistance and very steep impurity profiles through two processes: cluster-ion implantation (suppressing the channeling effect for implanted impurity atoms), and diffusion-less high-temperature millisecond annealing (for impurity activation). To visualize cross-sectional potential distributions in the transistors, e-beam holography was applied with “world-leading spatial resolution” to enable calibration of TCAD results. Their work realizes shape control of the USJ and optimized fab processes, demonstrating that planar-bulk-type CMOS devices “can be miniaturized down to the 30nm generation, while maintaining good performance and suppressed leakage current.”

Nano-interconnect Progress


December 14, 2007

Nanotechnology is alive and creeping closer in university and industry research labs. Last month’s Boston meeting of the Materials Research Society included 91 sessions with the term “nano” somewhere in the title. While most addressed material characteristics and laboratory techniques, two focused on carbon nanotube (CNT) large scale integration (LSI) device interconnections and related issues.

The Spectrum S-920 series of scalable dispensing platforms adapts to the needs and requirements of high-volume microelectronics manufacturing and PCB assembly such as flip chip and CSP underfill. The platforms feature technologically advanced and integrated software and hardware control based on Fluidmove XP software with process control features. The Rapid Response Heater system minimizes start-up time by ensuring quick ramp to set point and delivers uniform heat across the entire part surface with its low-mass design, while Controlled Process Heat software can be added for an even higher level of automated heat control. The platform can be configured with single or dual lanes, and one, two or three heat stations depending on capacity, process control, application, and footprint requirements. Dispensing flow rates are up to 500 mg/sec. and shot rates are up to 200 dots/sec. Asymtek, Carlsbad, CA, www.asymtek.com.

by Bob Haavind, Editorial Director, Solid State Technology

Over 1600 technologists gathered in Washington, DC, to explore a wide range of innovative ideas at the 2007 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM). Boosting performance as the shrink heads below 45nm was the goal of many new CMOS-based schemes. There were 237 papers from all over the globe, about a third of the 695 submitted.

While current mainstream CMOS approaches, using strain engineering and metal/high-k dielectric gates, were covered extensively, there were also a wide range of further out alternatives, suggesting that darts had been tossed at periodic table charts all over the world.

Germanium and silicon germanium (SiGe) were predominant, but there were may other devices incorporating III-V compounds, metal source and drain, and even hints of future circuitry based on carbon rather than Si or Ge. Carbon-based nanoelectronic technology using graphene even won a catchy new name: “pionics.”

A very promising demonstration of how compound semiconductor devices might be integrated onto a silicon substrate was presented by a group from Intel and IQE (Bethlehem, PA). An enhancement-mode quantum well (QW) transistor using indium-gallium-arsenide InGaAs was heterogeneously integrated onto silicon using a composite buffer only 1.3μm thick. The QFET is very promising for high-speed, low-power logic due to high electron mobility and low leakage. This seamless integration of a high-performance QFET suggests that logic blocks of such devices could be coupled with mainstream SiCMOS platforms for future microprocessors, the authors concluded. The quantum well device with an 80nm gate length had a +0.11V threshold voltage with an ION/IOFF ratio of 2150 with a 0.5V gate voltage swing. Sub-threshold slope and drain induced barrier loading (DIBL) were better for enhancement-mode than depletion-mode devices, they reported.

A sub-50nm compound semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) also set a new speed record, achieving an extrapolated Fmax of over 1THz, as reported by a group from Northrop Grumman Space Technology and the Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL). The extrapolation was based on the successful demo of a 3-stage low-noise millimeter IC amplifier working at 340GHz with over 15dB gain. The authors believe they can achieve 600-700GHz amplifiers with next-generation designs, pushing the limits for military and telecom systems as well as radio astronomy. The InGaAs/InAlAs/InP HEMT incorporates a T-shaped gate as small as 35nm formed using e-beam lithography.

Another record, an ultrahigh blocking voltage of 8300V which could be useful for high-power systems such as hybrid vehicles, was achieved for an AlGaN/GaN heterogeneous transistor (HFET) on sapphire with thick poly-AIN passivation by a group from Matsushita/Panasonic. Via holes were drilled thru the etch-resistant sapphire by a high-powered laser. The device achieves a specific on-state resistance of 186-Ω.cm2 with an Imax of 150mA/mm.

A room-temperature electrically pumped Ge semiconductor laser, potentially useful for light generation for an IC, was developed by a group from National Taiwan U. They used a simple metal-insulator semiconductor (MIS) structure, with a thin (~2nm) tunneling insulator to allow carrier tunneling between an electrode and the semiconductor. A pair of cleaved (111) planes perpendicular to the plane of junction forms a Fabry-Perot cavity. The device is 48μm wide with a 1-2mm cavity length. The authors suggest that the Ge laser could be integrated onto silicon by epi or wafer bonding, and an even better laser may be feasible by taking advantage of the SiGe junction.

Pionics, or graphene nanoelectronics, was the topic of an overflowing session. Walt deHeer of Georgia Institute of Tech. said he was surprised his paper was accepted due to the early phase of this work on deposited hexagonal carbon like that of carbon nanotubes (CNT). The major difference is that CNTs grow in an uncontrolled tangle while the deposited graphene forms thin films on a SiC wafer. In-plane sigma bonds in the carbon form the strongest bonds known but groups of atoms form p-electron orbitals in what is called pibands, hence the name “pionics.” The piband mass is zero, so carrier velocities are independent of energy. In addition to charge and spin, they are characterized by chirality. Successive layers in the hexagonal motif are rotated about 2.5°, so there is little interlayer coupling.

Similar to CNTs, metallic or semiconducting graphene ribbons can be created with the bandgap inversely proportionally to the ribbon width due to quantum confinement. The graphene layers can be patterned using microelectronics techniques to form both transistors and interconnects. Graphene mobilities of 104cm2/Vs have been demonstrated, promising higher speeds and lower power than is possible with silicon, deHeer said.

Obtaining bandgaps suitable for room-temperature operation would require nanopatterning beyond present capabilities, however, so a chemical modification method for bandgap control would more expedient at present, he explained.

The excitement about pionics at IEDM is shared by DARPA, according to a source at the session, and a major development program is planned for this emerging technology.

Another graphene paper from the U. of Florida in the US, and U. of Pisa in Italy, did a performance comparison of two types of graphene nanoribbon devices: schottky barrier and MOSFETs. The MOSFET has superior parameters and would be less impacted by potential defects, so this type of device would be preferable.

The JJ Ebers award fittingly went to Stephen J. Pearton, a Tasmanian with a dry wit, who was a pioneer in developing processes for compound semiconductors when at Bell Labs. Pearton noted in his acceptance that compound semiconductors and silicon technology now appear to be merging to some extent, and he congratulated the silicon community for “catching up.” — B.H.