Category Archives: Materials

By integrating the design of antenna and electronics, researchers have boosted the energy and spectrum efficiency for a new class of millimeter wave transmitters, allowing improved modulation and reduced generation of waste heat. The result could be longer talk time and higher data rates in millimeter wave wireless communication devices for future 5G applications.

The new co-design technique allows simultaneous optimization of the millimeter wave antennas and electronics. The hybrid devices use conventional materials and integrated circuit (IC) technology, meaning no changes would be required to manufacture and package them. The co-design scheme allows fabrication of multiple transmitters and receivers on the same IC chip or the same package, potentially enabling multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems as well as boosting data rates and link diversity.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology presented their proof-of-concept antenna-based outphasing transmitter on June 11 at the 2018 Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC) in Philadelphia. Their other antenna-electronics co-design work was published at the 2017 and 2018 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) and multiple peer-reviewed IEEE journals. The Intel Corporation and U.S. Army Research Office sponsored the research.

Georgia Tech researchers are shown with electronics equipment and antenna setup used to measure far-field radiated output signal from millimeter wave transmitters. Shown are Graduate Research Assistant Huy Thong Nguyen, Graduate Research Assistant Sensen Li, and Assistant Professor Hua Wang. (Credit: Allison Carter, Georgia Tech)

“In this proof-of-example, our electronics and antenna were designed so that they can work together to achieve a unique on-antenna outphasing active load modulation capability that significantly enhances the efficiency of the entire transmitter,” said Hua Wang, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “This system could replace many types of transmitters in wireless mobile devices, base stations and infrastructure links in data centers.”

Key to the new design is maintaining a high-energy efficiency regardless whether the device is operating at its peak or average output power. The efficiency of most conventional transmitters is high only at the peak power but drops substantially at low power levels, resulting in low efficiency when amplifying complex spectrally efficient modulations. Moreover, conventional transmitters often add the outputs from multiple electronics using lossy power combiner circuits, exacerbating the efficiency degradation.

“We are combining the output power though a dual-feed loop antenna, and by doing so with our innovation in the antenna and electronics, we can substantially improve the energy efficiency,” said Wang, who is the Demetrius T. Paris Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  “The innovation in this particular design is to merge the antenna and electronics to achieve the so-called outphasing operation that dynamically modulates and optimizes the output voltages and currents of power transistors, so that the millimeter wave transmitter maintains a high energy efficiency both at the peak and average power.”

Beyond energy efficiency, the co-design also facilitates spectrum efficiency by allowing more complex modulation protocols. That will enable transmission of a higher data rate within the fixed spectrum allocation that poses a significant challenge for 5G systems.

“Within the same channel bandwidth, the proposed transmitter can transmit six to ten times higher data rate,” Wang said. “Integrating the antenna gives us more degrees of freedom to explore design innovation, something that could not be done before.”

Sensen Li, a Georgia Tech graduate research assistant who received the Best Student Paper Award at the 2018 RFIC symposium, said the innovation resulted from bringing together two disciplines that have traditionally worked separately.

“We are merging the technologies of electronics and antennas, bringing these two disciplines together to break through limits,” he said. “These improvements could not be achieved by working on them independently. By taking advantage of this new co-design concept, we can further improve the performance of future wireless transmitters.”

The new designs have been implemented in 45-nanometer CMOS SOI IC devices and flip-chip packaged on high-frequency laminate boards, where testing has confirmed a minimum two-fold increase in energy efficiency, Wang said.

The antenna electronics co-design is enabled by exploring the unique nature of multi-feed antennas.

“An antenna structure with multiple feeds allows us to use multiple electronics to drive the antenna concurrently. Different from conventional single-feed antennas, multi-feed antennas can serve not only as radiating elements, but they can also function as signal processing units that interface among multiple electronic circuits,” Wang explained. “This opens a completely new design paradigm to have different electronic circuits driving the antenna collectively with different but optimized signal conditions, achieving unprecedented energy efficiency, spectral efficiency and reconfigurability.”

The cross-disciplinary co-design could also facilitate fabrication and operation of multiple transmitters and receivers on the same chip, allowing hundreds or even thousands of elements to work together as a whole system. “In massive MIMO systems, we need to have a lot of transmitters and receivers, so energy efficiency will become even more important,” Wang noted.

Having large numbers of elements working together becomes more practical at millimeter wave frequencies because the wavelength reduction means elements can be placed closer together to achieve compact systems, he pointed out. These factors could pave the way for new types of beamforming that are essential in future millimeter wave 5G systems.

Power demands could drive adoption of the technology for battery-powered devices, but Wang says the technology could also be useful for grid-powered systems such as base stations or wireless connections to replace cables in large data centers. In those applications, expanding data rates and reducing cooling needs could make the new devices attractive.

“Higher energy efficiency also means less energy will be converted to heat that must be removed to satisfy the thermal management,” he said. “In large data centers, even a small reduction in thermal load per device can add up. We hope to simplify the thermal requirements of these electronic devices.”

In addition to those already mentioned, the research team included Taiyun Chi, Huy Thong Nguyen and Tzu-Yuan Huang, all from Georgia Tech.

A Tokyo Institute of Technology research team has shown copper nitride acts as an n-type semiconductor, with p-type conduction provided by fluorine doping, utilizing a unique nitriding technique applicable for mass production and a computational search for appropriate doping elements, as well as atomically resolved microscopy and electronic structure analysis using synchrotron radiation. These n-type and p-type copper nitride semiconductors could potentially replace the conventional toxic or rare materials in photovoltaic cells.

Thin film photovoltaics have equivalent efficiency and can cut the cost of materials compared to market-dominating silicon solar panels. Utilizing the photovoltaic effect, thin layers of specific p-type and n-type materials are sandwiched together to produce electricity from sunlight. The technology promises a brighter future for solar energy, allowing low-cost and scalable manufacturing routes compared to crystalline silicon technology, even though toxic and rare materials are used in commercialized thin film solar cells. A Tokyo Institute of Technology team has challenged to find a new candidate material for producing cleaner, cheaper thin film photovoltaics.

(a) This is a copper and Copper Nitride. (b) Theoretical Calculation for P-type and N-type Copper Nitride. (c) Direct Observation of Fluorine Position in Fluorine-doped Copper Nitride. (a) An image of thin film copper plates before and after reacting with ammonia and oxygen. Copper metal has been transformed to copper nitride. (b) Copper insertion for an n-type semiconductor and fluorine insertion for a p-type semiconductor. (c) Nitrogen plotted in red, fluorine in green, and copper in blue. Fluorine is located at the open space of the crystal as predicted by the theoretical calculation. Credit: Advanced Materials

They have focused on a simple binary compound, copper nitride that is composed of environmentally friendly elements. However, growing a nitride crystal in a high quality form is challenging as history tells us to develop gallium nitride blue LEDs. Matsuzaki and his coworkers have overcome the difficulty by introducing a novel catalytic reaction route using ammonia and oxidant gas. This compound, pictured through the photograph in figure (a), is an n-type conductor that has excess electrons. On the other hand, by inserting fluorine element in the open space of the crystal, they found this n-type compound transformed into p-type as predicted by theoretical calculations and directly proven by atomically resolved microscopy in figures (b) and (c), respectively.

All existing thin film photovoltaics require a p-type or n-type partner in their makeup of a sandwich structure, requiring huge efforts to find the best combination. P-type and n-type conduction in the same material developed by Matsuzaki and his coworkers are beneficial to design a highly efficient solar cell structure without such efforts. This material is non-toxic, abundant, and therefore potentially cheap–ideal replacements for in use cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium diselenide thin film solar cells. With the development of these p-type and n-type semiconductors, in a scalable forming technique using simple safe and abundant elements, the positive qualities will further bring thin film technology into the light.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

New metrology and inspection technologies and new analysis approaches made possible by improving compute technology offer solutions to finding the increasingly subtle variations in materials and subsystems that meet specifications but still cause defects on the wafer. More collaboration across the supply chain is helping too.  SEMICON West programs on materials and subsystems will address these issues.

New metrology approaches needed to deal with process margin challenges

As device process margins shrink and subtler materials variations cause unwanted variations,  the need for better monitoring of both surface and sub-surface material variations is driving a trend towards “metro-spection” – the convergence of metrology and inspection. “Device process margins have eroded to the point that traditional metrology strategies and techniques are no longer viable for controlling yield and parametric performance,” says Nanometrics Vice President Robert Fiordalice, who will speak in the materials program at SEMICON West. “Limited sampling capability, low throughput, insufficient sensitivity or the destructive nature of the techniques can often become problems. What’s more, deviations in material characteristics are not always determined by the initial quality of the material, but often arise from variations during the integration of the materials.”

“Device process margins have eroded to the point that traditional metrology strategies and techniques are no longer viable for controlling yield and parametric performance.” – Robert Fiordalice, Nanometrics

One new type of inline tool or line monitoring technology is Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, traditionally used in quality control or tool characterization. Better sensitivity and higher throughput now enable rapid analysis and feedback for on-the-fly detection of subtle deviations in film properties that may compromise device performance or yield.

More advanced analytics will help extract new information from old metrology

More expensive metrology may not be required to identify subtle variations in in-spec materials that cause wafer defects. Today’s advanced compute capabilities now enable more sophisticated analysis of existing data and the identification of small but significant variations in raw materials and finished goods.

The figure of merit (FoM) values presented in certificate of analysis (CoA) reports miss subtle variations in raw material properties. Of particular note is the reduction of molecular weight distributions to a mean, and standard deviation, whereas variations in the tails are associated with pattern defects. Advanced compute capabilities now allow the industry to step beyond the FoM in favor of more holistic measures, enabling predictive analysis of resist chemical variations associated with specific pattern defects. Source: JSR Micro

“We often don’t need to find a new measure, but just a new way of looking at what we measure now,” says Jim Mulready, vice president of global quality assurance at JSR Micro. Mulready will speak in the SEMICON West program on materials defectivity issues. “The certificate of analysis reduces multiple measurements to a single figure of merit. But if we ignore all that raw data, we miss a chance to learn.  One of our sayings in quality is ‘Customers don’t feel the average, they feel the variation.’ In many electronic materials, the quality of the raw material can have a big impact on the final performance, but the types of analysis needed to look at the tails of the distribution of these measures (such as molecular weight) in detail used to be really hard to do. Now it’s becoming increasingly straightforward and affordable.”

 “We often don’t need to find a new measure, but just a new way looking at what we measure now.” – Jim Mulready, JSR Micro

Mulready says tools now available in the data processing sector enable the identification of subtle variations in materials that can cause defects on the wafer. These tools use methods like detailed subtractions of chromatography curves of polymer raw materials or analysis of tails of distributions of molecular weights. “Our job now is to drive these kinds of more sophisticated data analysis back into our chemical supply chain as well,” says Mulready. “We must work more closely with our suppliers to integrate their raw materials into our products. The reason the JSRs of the world exist is as a safety valve to reduce the variation from the chemical industry before it gets to the fab.”

Continued collaboration with equipment suppliers required as well

While the industry has been talking about the need for tighter collaboration between materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers for years, it still doesn’t always happen. “The material supplier and the equipment maker are tied together like kids in a three-legged race when we deliver an integrated system for consistent on-wafer performance,” says Cristina Chu, TEL/NEXX director of strategic business development, another speaker in the materials program.  “When we introduce changes to the tool hardware, we need to make sure it doesn’t upset the system. Similarly, we need the material supplier to send a bottle over when a new chemistry formulation is under development. If a new chemistry runs into problems in the field, it will take much more time for both of us to fix it at the customer site. The toolmaker can provide a slightly different perspective on applications, while being more objective than a customer on how the formulation performs compared to earlier versions.”

“The material supplier and the equipment maker are tied together like kids in a three-legged race when we deliver an integrated system for consistent on-wafer performance.” – Cristina Chu, TEL/NEXX

Regular and ongoing collaboration between chemistry suppliers and toolmakers enables the highest quality system solution to reach the customer. Chu notes that her team tries to maintain consistent collaborations with material suppliers across changes in organizations as the business environment changes. “For consistent on-wafer capabilities, we need a consistent collaboration process with chemistry suppliers. We need to meet with materials providers at a regular cadence throughout their development process. We need to check back with them as we scale up results from the coupon to the wafer level and to work out the kinks in the integrated solution together. The quality and consistency of our combined performance at the customer depends on ensuring the quality and consistency of our development and evaluation process as well.”

Fabs and subsystems suppliers look to pilot data sharing program to improve process margins

With ever tighter process margins, subtle variations in parameters that don’t appear in the specifications are also compromising results on the wafer, and neither the fab nor the supplier alone has the full information needed to improve performance. To help, a SEMI standards group is developing a protocol for a pilot program to standardize and automate some data sharing.

“In order for engineers to have constructive conversations about how to improve performance, we all need to exchange more information.” – Eric Bruce, Samsung Austin

The fab knows that performance is best with a particular parameter value, and knows when performance fluctuates,  but often faces a black box problem with no way of knowing what exactly is wrong. In the rush to get the tool back up, the fab engineers may not get around to emailing the supplier about the issue for some time. The subsystems supplier, on the other hand, may know the cause of the variation,  but likely has no way of knowing the critical parameters or ideal target valuesfor the fab’s process..  “In order for engineers to have constructive conversations about how to improve performance, we all need to exchange more information,” says Eric Bruce, Samsung Austin diffusion engineer, and co-chair of the SEMI standards effort working on the issue, who will speak in the subsystems program at SEMICON West.

A potential solution could be to create a standard and automated process to share particular data, agreed to in the purchasing contract, whereby the subsystems supplier shares more information about their parameters with the fab, and the fab in return gives feedback on what parameters work best to drive improved performance. The best place to start will likely be on parts that do not contain core yield-related IP, but where usage and lifetime information is useful.

“We’re looking for people to participate in a pilot program to work together with suppliers to try sharing some information to improve performance,” says Bruce. “There’s a lot of this sharing in the backroom anyway, but this could make it fast and automated, and make everyone’s engineering job a lot easier.”

As silicon-based semiconductors reach their performance limits, gallium nitride (GaN) is becoming the next go-to material to advance light-emitting diode (LED) technologies, high-frequency transistors and photovoltaic devices. Holding GaN back, however, is its high numbers of defects.

This material degradation is due to dislocations — when atoms become displaced in the crystal lattice structure. When multiple dislocations simultaneously move from shear force, bonds along the lattice planes stretch and eventually break. As the atoms rearrange themselves to reform their bonds, some planes stay intact while others become permanently deformed, with only half planes in place. If the shear force is great enough, the dislocation will end up along the edge of the material.

As silicon-based semiconductors reach performance limits, gallium nitride is becoming the next go-to material for several technologies. Holding GaN back, however, is its high numbers of defects. Better understanding how GaN defects form at the atomic level could improve the performance of the devices made using this material. Researchers have taken a significant step by examining and determining six core configurations of the GaN lattice. They present their findings in the Journal of Applied Physics. This image shoes the distribution of stresses per atom (a) and (b) of a-edge dislocations along the <1-100> direction in wurtzite GaN. Credit: Physics Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Layering GaN on substrates of different materials makes the problem that much worse because the lattice structures typically don’t align. This is why expanding our understanding of how GaN defects form at the atomic level could improve the performance of the devices made using this material.

A team of researchers has taken a significant step toward this goal by examining and determining six core configurations of the GaN lattice. They presented their findings in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing.

“The goal is to identify, process and characterize these dislocations to fully understand the impact of defects in GaN so we can find specific ways to optimize this material,” said Joseph Kioseoglou, a researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an author of the paper.

There are also problems that are intrinsic to the properties of GaN that result in unwanted effects like color shifts in the emission of GaN-based LEDs. According to Kioseoglou, this could potentially could be addressed by exploiting different growth orientations.

The researchers used computational analysis via molecular dynamics and density functional theory simulations to determine the structural and electronic properties of a-type basal edge dislocations along the <1-100> direction in GaN. Dislocations along this direction are common in semipolar growth orientations.

The study was based on three models with different core configurations. The first consisted of three nitrogen (N) atoms and one gallium (Ga) atom for the Ga polarity; the second had four N atoms and two Ga atoms; the third contained two N atoms and two Ga core-associated atoms. Molecular dynamic calculations were performed using approximately 15,000 atoms for each configuration.

The researchers found that the N polarity configurations exhibited significantly more states in the bandgap compared to the Ga polarity ones, with the N polar configurations presenting smaller bandgap values.

“There is a connection between the smaller bandgap values and the great number of states inside them,” said Kioseoglou. “These findings potentially demonstrate the role of nitrogen as a major contributor to dislocation-related effects in GaN-based devices.”

Gases and engineering company The Linde Group, a supplier of electronic materials, is investing in the expansion of existing products to improve business continuity planning (BCP), while adding new products with improved purity to meet the growing needs of sub-10nm semiconductor factories and advanced flat panel manufacturers.

Expanded capacity of fluorine/nitrogen mixtures
Linde has expanded capacity for fluorine/nitrogen mixtures at Medford, Oregon for etching and chamber cleaning applications.

  • This allows both low- and high-pressure fluorine and nitrogen mixture production.
  • On-site high-purity fluorine production minimizes third-party supply issues.
  • The product line is expanding to include fluorine/argon mixtures in place with tri-mix       capability(fluorine/argon/nitrogen) later in 2018.
  • This facility complements fluorine mixture production at the Linde Alpha, New Jersey facility.

New precursors to meet customer requirements
New elements of innovation continue to emerge in CVD, ALD, and ALE precursors such as high-volume supply capabilities, process solutions to deliver quality in our advanced precursors and an applications lab to support new materials development. Linde is developing deposition precursors and etch gases: silicon precursors, digermanium mixtures, high K and metal gate precursors, isotope gases and etch gases such as CF3I (trifluoroiodomethane) and custom fluorinated silane.

“Linde recognizes that our customers continue to make investments in new processes and technologies, and we are committed to investing with them for the materials they will require now and in the future,” states Matt Adams, Head of Sales and Marketing for Linde Electronics and Specialty Products.

Linde Electronics will be exhibiting at the SEMICON West tradeshow in San Francisco July 10-12. Its focus will be on the quality, expertise, commitment and environmental leadership that Linde Electronics brings to the semiconductor industry through such offerings as electronic specialty gases, on-site solutions, materials recycling and recovery and SPECTRA® nitrogen plants.

SEMICON West is the annual tradeshow for the micro-electronics manufacturing industry. All visitors are welcome to visit Linde in booth number 5644 in the North hall in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed flexible terahertz imagers based on chemically “tunable” carbon nanotube materials. The findings expand the scope of terahertz applications to include wrap-around, wearable technologies as well as large-area photonic devices.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are beginning to take the electronics world by storm, and now their use in terahertz (THz) technologies has taken a big step forward.

The CNT THz imager enabled clear, non-destructive visualization of a metal paper clip inside an envelope. Credit: ACS Applied Nano Materials

Due to their excellent conductivity and unique physical properties, CNTs are an attractive option for next-generation electronic devices. One of the most promising developments is their application in THz devices. Increasingly, THz imagers are emerging as a safe and viable alternative to conventional imaging systems across a wide range of applications, from airport security, food inspection and art authentication to medical and environmental sensing technologies.

The demand for THz detectors that can deliver real-time imaging for a broad range of industrial applications has spurred research into low-cost, flexible THz imaging systems. Yukio Kawano of the Laboratory for Future Interdisciplinary Research of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), is a world-renowned expert in this field. In 2016, for example, he announced the development of wearable terahertz technologies based on multiarrayed carbon nanotubes.

Kawano and his team have since been investigating THz detection performance for various types of CNT materials, in recognition of the fact that there is plenty of room for improvement to meet the needs of industrial-scale applications.

Now, they report the development of flexible THz imagers for CNT films that can be fine-tuned to maximize THz detector performance.

Publishing their findings in ACS Applied Nano Materials, the new THz imagers are based on chemically adjustable semiconducting CNT films.

By making use of a technology known as ionic liquid gating[1], the researchers demonstrated that they could obtain a high degree of control over key factors related to THz detector performance for a CNT film with a thickness of 30 micrometers. This level of thickness was important to ensure that the imagers would maintain their free-standing shape and flexibility, as shown in Figure 1.

“Additionally,” the team says, “we developed gate-free Fermi-level[2] tuning based on variable-concentration dopant solutions and fabricated a Fermi-level-tuned p?n junction[3] CNT THz imager.” In experiments using this new type of imager, the researchers achieved successful visualization of a metal paper clip inside a standard envelope (see Figure 2.)

The bendability of the new THz imager and the possibility of even further fine-tuning will expand the range of CNT-based devices that could be developed in the near future.

Moreover, low-cost fabrication methods such as inkjet coating could make large-area THz imaging devices more readily available.

SEMI today announced the formation of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group (EMG), a new collaborative technology community that combines the former Chemical & Gas Manufacturers Group (CGMG), the Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) and other SEMI member segments to better serve the interests of the electronics materials industry. The group is open to SEMI Members involved in materials manufacture, distribution and services throughout the microelectronics industry.

“Materials companies are the linchpin of innovation – enabling advances in technology across the microelectronics value chain – from sand to smartphones,” said Bart Pitcock, vice president and general manager, North America for KMG Electronic Chemicals and chair of the EMG Americas Chapter. “We are pleased to build out this SEMI platform to drive program collaboration, information exchange, issues management and communication to materials industry stakeholders including customers and policymakers.”

Electronic materials have played an increasingly important role in technology innovation as electronics move from IT-centric to ubiquitous computing across consumer, industrial and data management markets. The market size for wafer fabrication materials (US$ 28 billion), semiconductor packaging materials (US$ 19 billion), and electronics assembly materials (US$ 20 billion) reflects the critical importance of materials to the growth and expansion of the worldwide electronic manufacturing ecosystem.

To help manage growing interdependencies across the microelectronics supply chain, the EMG now represents all materials makers, aligning with the SEMI mission to serve members across the microelectronics design and manufacturing industries.

As the first SEMI technology community, the Silicon Manufacturers’ Group was instrumental in the evolution of SEMI and the industry, defining standards for silicon wafers, the substrate on which semiconductors are built.

“Members of the former Silicon Manufacturers’ Group are pleased to join forces with other companies that provide the critical materials that enable the worldwide electronics manufacturing industries,” said Neil Weaver, director, Product Development and Applications Engineering of Shin-Etsu Handotai America. “We see great value and mutual purpose in working with others in the electronics materials community to advance our common interests.”

The EMG will continue its mission to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the microelectronics materials industry that are more effectively addressed by an industry association than by individual companies.

“We are pleased with the unanimous affirmation of the new community by SEMI regions and member segments worldwide,” said Tom Salmon, vice president of Collaborative Technology Platforms at SEMI.

An international collaborative research group including Tokyo Institute of Technology, Universite PARIS DIDEROT and CNRS has discovered that CO2 is selectively reduced to CO[1] when a photocatalyst[2] composed of an organic semiconductor material and an iron complex is exposed to visible light. They have made clear that it is possible to convert CO2, the major factor of global warming, into a valuable carbon resource using visible light as the energy source, even with a photocatalyst composed of only commonly occurring elements.

This is CO2 reduction using a photocatalyst combining carbon nitride and an iron compl. Credit: Osamu Ishitani

In recent years, technologies to reduce CO2into a resource using metal complexes and semiconductors as photocatalysts are being developed worldwide. If this technology called artificial photosynthesis can be applied, scientists would be able to convert CO2, which is considered the major factor of global warming and is being treated as a villain, into a valuable carbon resource using sunlight as the energy source.

Complexes and inorganic semiconductors containing precious and rare metals such as ruthenium, rhenium, and tantalum have been used in highly active photocatalysts reported so far. However, considering the tremendous amount of CO2, there was a need to create new photocatalysts made only with elements widely available on Earth.

Professor Osamu Ishitani, Associate Professor Kazuhiko Maeda, research staff Ryo Kuriki and others of Tokyo Tech, with the support of JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency)’s Strategic Basic Research Programs (CREST Establishment of Molecular Technology towards the Creation of New Functions) for international collaborative research projects, performed collaborative research with the research group of Professor Marc Robert of Universite PARIS DIDEROT and CNRS. As a result, by fusing carbon nitride, an organic semiconductor, with a complex made of iron and organic materials and using it as a photocatalyst, they succeeded in turning CO2 into a resource at high efficiency under the condition of exposure to visible light at ordinary temperature and pressure.

By combining the organic semiconductor carbon nitride[3], made of carbon and nitrogen, with an iron complex and using it as a photocatalyst, they found that they could reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) to carbon monoxide (CO) at high efficiency. This photocatalytic reaction progresses when exposed to visible light, which is the major component in the wavelength band of sunlight. The carbon nitride absorbs visible light and drives the migration of electrons from the reducing agent to the iron complex, the catalyst. The iron complex uses that electrons to reduce CO2 to CO. The turnover number[4], the external quantum efficiency[5], and the selectivity[6] of CO2 reduction–performance indicators for the formation of CO–reached 155, 4.2%, and 99%, respectively. These values are almost the same as when precious metal or rare metal complexes are used, and about ten times more than photocatalysts reported so far using base metals or organic molecules.

This research was the first to demonstrate that CO2 can be reduced into a resource efficiently using sunlight as the energy source, even by using materials which exist abundantly on Earth, such as carbon, nitrogen, and iron. Tasks remaining are to further improve their function as a photocatalyst and to succeed in fusing them with oxidation photocatalysts which can use water, which exists abundantly on Earth and is inexpensive, as a reducing agent.

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a developer of specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions for the microelectronics industry, announced today that it acquired Flex Concepts, Inc., a technology company focused on bioprocessing single-use bags, and fluid transfer solutions for the life sciences industry. Flex Concepts’ quick-turn, custom-configured, single-use product technology is a complement to Entegris existing single-use bag product line. With this combination, Entegris is now able to provide customers with a comprehensive solution set to meet emerging bioprocessing requirements.

Regulatory-driven process and production changes to pharmaceutical products are bringing incredible advancements to this industry.  However, these advancements often require organizations to have highly-customized process solutions that can be delivered with speed to meet tight development timelines.  With the technology from Flex Concepts, Entegris is able to better equip its customers to deliver the next healthcare treatment or disease prevention tool with the speed and flexibility they need to succeed in the market.

“In the pharma development pipeline, the quicker a potential process is developed, the faster life-saving treatments can be made available to patients” says Eric Isberg director of Life Sciences, Entegris. “The addition of Flex Concepts capabilities will allow us to enrich our solutions set for fast growing single use bioprocessing applications.”

Neither the purchase price nor Flex Concepts financial results are material to Entegris overall financial statements.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry, today announced a ramp for its radio frequency silicon-on-insulator (RF SOI) 65nm process in its 300mm Uozu, Japan fab. TowerJazz has signed a contract with long-term partner, SOITEC, a semiconductor materials supplier to guarantee a supply of tens of thousands of 300mm SOI silicon wafers, securing wafer prices for the next years and ensuring supply to its customers, despite a very tight SOI wafer market.

With best in class metrics, TowerJazz’s 65nm RF SOI process enables the combination of low insertion loss and high power handling RF switches with options for high-performance low-noise amplifiers as well as digital integration. The process can reduce losses in an RF switch improving battery life and boosting data rates in handsets and IoT terminals.

According to Mobile Experts, LLC, a market research firm for mobile communications, the mobile RF front-end market is estimated to reach $22 billion in 2022 from an estimated $16 billion in 2018. TowerJazz’s breakthrough RF SOI technology continues to support this high-growth market and is well-poised to take advantage of next-generation 5G standards which will boost data rates and provide further content growth opportunities in the coming years.

TowerJazz is also proud to announce its relationship with Maxscend, a provider of RF components and IoT integrated circuits, ramping in this new technology.

“We chose TowerJazz for its advanced technology capabilities and its ability to deliver in high volume while continuously innovating with a strong roadmap. We specifically selected its 300mm 65nm RF SOI platform for our next-generation product line due to its superior performance, enabling low insertion loss and high power handling,” said Zhihan Xu, Maxscend Chief Executive Officer.

“We are delighted to see the strong adoption of 300mm RF SOI through this large capacity and supply agreement with TowerJazz to augment our already significant 200mm RF SOI partnership.  TowerJazz was the first foundry to ramp our RFeSI products to high volume production in 200mm and continues as one of the industry leaders in innovation in this exciting RF market with advanced and differentiated offerings,” said Paul Boudre, SOITEC Chief Executive Officer.

“We are thrilled about our continued partnership with Maxscend as they bring breakthrough products to market, manufactured using our latest 300mm 65nm RF SOI platform. Also, we are very pleased with our SOITEC partnership to secure tens of thousands of 300mm RF SOI wafers to feed the strong demand in our 300mm Japan factory,” said Russell Ellwanger, TowerJazz Chief Executive Officer.

For more information on TowerJazz’s 65nm RF SOI technology, please visit: http://www.towerjazz.com/sige-bicmos_rf-cmos.html.