Category Archives: Process Materials

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.

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have discovered a novel strategy for creating superatoms — combinations of atoms that can mimic the properties of more than one group of elements of the periodic table. These superatoms could be used to create new materials, including more efficient batteries and better semiconductors; a core component of microchips, transistors and most computerized devices.

Batteries and semiconductors rely on the movement of charges from one group of atoms to another. During this process, electrons are transferred from donor atoms to acceptor atoms. Forming superatoms that can supply or accept multiple electrons while maintaining structural stability is a key requirement for creating better batteries or semiconductors, said Shiv Khanna, Ph.D., Commonwealth Professor and chair of the Department of Physics in the College of Humanities and Sciences. The ability of superatoms to effectively move charges while staying intact is attributed to how they mimic the properties of multiple groups of elements.

“We have devised a new approach in which one can synthesize such metal-based superatoms,” Khanna said.

In a paper published in Nature Communications last week, Khanna theoretically proved a method of building superatoms that could result in the creation of more effective energetic materials. The work was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

“Semiconductors are used in every sphere of life,” Khanna said. “Superatoms that could substantially enhance electron donation would be a significant societal benefit.”

Currently, alkali atoms, which form the first column of the periodic table, are optimal for donating electrons. These naturally occurring atoms require a low amount of energy to donate an electron. However, donating more than one electron requires a prohibitively high amount of energy.

Khanna and colleagues Arthur Reber, associate professor of physics, and Vikas Chauhan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics, have created a process by which clusters of atoms can donate or receive multiple electrons using low levels of energy.

“The possibility of having these building blocks that can accept multiple charges or donate multiple charges would eventually have wide-ranging applications in electronics,” Khanna said.

While such superatoms already have been made, there has never been a guiding theory for doing so effectively. Khanna and his colleagues theorize that organic ligands — molecules that bind metal atoms to protect and stabilize them — can improve the exchange of electrons without compromising energy levels.

They considered this theory using groups of aluminum clusters mixed with boron, carbon, silicon and phosphorous, paired with organic ligands. Using computational analysis, they demonstrated the cluster would use even less energy to donate an electron than francium, the strongest naturally occurring alkali electron donor.

“We could use ligands to take any cluster of atoms and turn it into either a donor or acceptor of electrons,” Khanna said. “We could form electron donors that are stronger than any element found on the periodic table.”

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a graphene assembled film that has over 60 percent higher thermal conductivity than graphite film – despite the fact that graphite simply consists of many layers of graphene. The graphene film shows great potential as a novel heat spreading material for form-factor driven electronics and other high power-driven systems.

Until now, scientists in the graphene research community have assumed that graphene assembled film cannot have higher thermal conductivity than graphite film. Single layer graphene has a thermal conductivity between 3500 and 5000 W/mK. If you put two graphene layers together, then it theoretically becomes graphite, as graphene is only one layer of graphite.

Today, graphite films, which are practically useful for heat dissipation and spreading in mobile phones and other power devices, have a thermal conductivity of up to 1950 W/mK. Therefore, the graphene-assembled film should not have higher thermal conductivity than this.

Research scientists at Chalmers University of Technology have recently changed this situation. They discovered that the thermal conductivity of graphene assembled film can reach up to 3200 W/mK, which is over 60 percent higher than the best graphite films.

In the graphene film, phonons — quantum particles that describe thermal conductivity — can move faster in the graphene layers rather than interact between the layers, thereby leading to higher thermal conductivity. Credit: Chalmers University of Technology/Krantz Nanoart

Professor Johan Liu and his research team have done this through careful control of both grain size and the stacking orders of graphene layers. The high thermal conductivity is a result of large grain size, high flatness, and weak interlayer binding energy of the graphene layers. With these important features, phonons, whose movement and vibration determine the thermal performance, can move faster in the graphene layers rather than interact between the layers, thereby leading to higher thermal conductivity.

“This is indeed a great scientific break-through, and it can have a large impact on the transformation of the existing graphite film manufacturing industry”, says Johan Liu.

Furthermore, the researchers discovered that the graphene film has almost three times higher mechanical tensile strength than graphite film, reaching 70 MPa.

“With the advantages of ultra-high thermal conductivity, and thin, flexible, and robust structures, the developed graphene film shows great potential as a novel heat spreading material for thermal management of form-factor driven electronics and other high power-driven systems”, says Johan Liu.

As a consequence of never-ending miniaturisation and integration, the performance and reliability of modern electronic devices and many other high-power systems are greatly threatened by severe thermal dissipation issues.

“To address the problem, heat spreading materials must get better properties when it comes to thermal conductivity, thickness, flexibility and robustness, to match the complex and highly integrated nature of power systems”, says Johan Liu. “Commercially available thermal conductivity materials, like copper, aluminum, and artificial graphite film, will no longer meet and satisfy these demands.”

The IP of the high-quality manufacturing process for the graphene film belongs to SHT Smart High Tech AB, a spin-off company from Chalmers, which is going to focus on the commercialisation of the technology.

Scientists of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) in cooperation with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Australian and Lithuanian Universities have improved the technique of ultrasensitive nonperturbing spectroscopic identification of molecular fingerprints.

A group of physicists experimentally confirmed that molecular fingerprints of toxic, explosive, polluting and other dangerous substances could be reliably detected and identified by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) using black silicon (b-Si) substrate. The results of the work are published in the authoritative scientific journal Nanoscale.

The needle-shaped surface structure of black silicon where needles are made of single-crystal silicon. The nanomaterial is absolutely chemically inert, non-invasive, and could support a strong and non-distorted signal Credit: FEFU press office

“When detecting the smallest molecules using SERS spectroscopy their interaction with the nanostructured substrate – the platform allowing ultrasensitive identification – is crucial”, the head of research team Alexander Kuchmizhak, Ph.D., reported. Alexander is a researcher of the Department of Theoretical and Nuclear Physics of the School of Natural Sciences of the FEFU. He also added: “Currently noble metals-based substrates are chemically active and as a result, they distort the characteristic molecules signals.”

“Due to its’ special morphology black silicon significantly enhances the signal from the molecules wanted. This nanomaterial doesn’t support catalytic conversion of the analyte as it could be in the case of the metal-based substrates applying. The ‘black silicon’- based substrate is unique: being absolutely chemically inert and non-invasive it could support a strong and non-distorted signal,” told Alexander Kuchmizhak.

The substrate can be fabricated by using the easy-to-implement scalable technology of plasma etching, thus has good prospects for commercial implementation. Such inexpensive non-metallic substrates with high accuracy of detection can be promising for routine SERS applications, where the non-invasiveness is of high importance.

Valuable properties of black silicon were discovered thanks to extensive scientific cooperation. Samples of the material were developed and provided by Australian colleagues, experimental work was carried out in the laboratories of the Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of Automation and Control Processes of the Far Eastern Branch of the RAS, as well as in the Scientific and Educational Center “Nanotechnologies” of the Engineering School of the FEFU.

The way that electrons paired as composite particles or arranged in lines interact with each other within a semiconductor provides new design opportunities for electronics, according to recent findings in Nature Communications.

What this means for semiconductor components, such as those that send information throughout electronic devices, is not yet clear, but hydrostatic pressure can be used to tune the interaction so that electrons paired as composite particles switch between paired, or “superconductor-like,” and lined-up, or “nematic,” phases. Forcing these phases to interact also suggests that they can influence each other’s properties, like stability – opening up possibilities for manipulation in electronic devices and quantum computing.

Two different kinds of electron arrangements in a semiconductor, paired as composite particles or lined-up, can interact with and tweak each other in the presence of hydrostatic pressure. Credit: Purdue University image/Gábor Csáthy

“You can literally have hundreds of different phases of electrons organizing themselves in different ways in a semiconductor,” said Gábor Csáthy, Purdue professor of physics and astronomy. “We found that two in particular can actually talk to each other in the presence of hydrostatic pressure.”

Csáthy’s group discovered that hydrostatic pressure, which is 10,000 times stronger than ambient pressure, compresses the lattice of atoms in a semiconductor and, therefore, influences the electron arrangement within a two-dimensional electron gas hosted by the semiconductor. The strength of the pressure determines which arrangement is favored and tunes the transition between the paired and lined-up phases, making them more tailorable for an application. Of the two phases, the paired phase may support a certain type of quantum computing.

“We can also tune the interaction by engineering the semiconductor,” Csáthy said. “Say, for example, we grew a semiconductor with a particular width and electron density that we estimated could stabilize the nematic phase. Then we’ve tuned the electron-electron interaction as a result.”

Michael Manfra, Purdue professor of physics and astronomy, electrical and computer engineering and materials engineering, and researchers Loren Pfeiffer and Kenneth West at Princeton University grew the semiconductor samples for this study. Yuli Lyanda-Geller, Purdue associate professor of physics and astronomy, provided theoretical support for the understanding on how these electron-electron interactions took place.

One of the leading challenges for autonomous vehicles is to ensure that they can detect and sense objects–even through dense fog. Compared to the current visible light-based cameras, infrared cameras can offer much better visibility through the fog, smoke or tiny particles that can scatter the visible light.

Artist’s rendering of light interacting with BaTiS3 crystals. Credit: Talia Spencer

Within the air, infrared light –within a specific range called mid-wave infrared– scatter much less compared to other visible or other infrared light waves. Infrared cameras can also see more effectively in the dark, when there is no visible light. However, currently the deployment of infrared cameras is limited by their heavy cost and scarcity of effective materials. This is where materials, which possess unique optical properties in the infrared and can be scalable, might make a difference in providing better object identification in several technologies including autonomous vehicles.

A new material developed by scientists at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the University of Wisconsin along with researchers from Air Force Research Laboratories, University of Missouri, and J.A. Woollam Co. Inc, might show promise for such infrared detection applications as autonomous vehicles, emergency services and even manufacturing.

The research group of Jayakanth Ravichandran, an assistant professor of materials sciences at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering has been studying a new class of materials called chalcogenide perovskites. Among these materials is Barium titanium sulfide (BTS), a material rediscovered and prepared in large crystal form by Shanyuan Niu, a doctoral candidate in the Materials Science program at the USC Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Ravichandran’s research group collaborated with the research groups of Mikhail Kats, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Han Wang, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and electrophysics in USC’s Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering to study how infrared light interacts with this material. These researchers discovered that this material interacted differently with light in two different directions.

“This is a significant breakthrough, which can affect many infrared applications,” says Ravichandran.

This direction dependent interaction with light is characterized by an optical property called birefringence. In simple terms, birefringence can be viewed as light moving at different speeds in two directions in a material. Much like sunglasses with polarized lenses block glare, BTS has the ability to block or slow down light depending on the direction in which it travels in the material. The researchers maintain that their material, barium titanium sulfide, has the highest birefringence among known crystals.

“The birefringence is larger than that of any known solid material, and it has low losses across the important long-wave infrared spectrum,” says Kats.

How BTS could improve infrared vision:

The BTS material can be used to construct a sensor to filter out certain polarizations of light to achieve better contrast of the image. It could also help filter light coming from different directions to enable sensing of a remote object’s features. This could be particularly important for improving infrared vision used in autonomous vehicles, which need to see the entire landscape around them even in low visibility conditions.

“The hope is that in the future, a BTS-enhanced sensor in a car would function as retinas do to the human body,” says Niu.

The authors believe these infrared-responsive materials can extend human perception. Beyond autonomous vehicles, there are other possible heat sensing or temperature measurement applications. One application could be in the creation of imaging tools used by firefighters to generate an instant temperature map outside a burning building to assess where a fire is spreading and where emergency responders need to rescue trapped individuals.

At present, the cost of infrared equipment makes it too expensive for all fire stations to have such equipment. BTS, which is made of elements readily abundant in earth crust–could make infrared equipment more affordable and effective. In addition, such materials are safer for the user and the environment, as well as easier to dispose of than the materials that are used now, which contain hazardous elements such as mercury and cadmium.

These materials could also be useful in devices that sense harmful molecules, gases, even biological systems. The applications range from heat sensing, pollution monitoring to medicine.

“To date, the constraint of existing mid-IR materials is a big bottleneck to translate many of these technologies,” says USC’s Wang.

The researchers hope that intense research in this area will make several of these technologies a reality in the near future.

The research on BTS is documented in “Giant optical anisotropy in a quasi-1D crystal” featured in Nature Photonics.

WIN Semiconductors Corp (TPEx:3105), the world’s largest pure-play compound semiconductor foundry, has expanded its portfolio of highly integrated GaAs technologies with the release of a new pHEMT technology. The PIH0-03 platform incorporates monolithic PIN and vertical Schottky diodes with WIN’s high performance 0.1um pseudomorphic HEMT process, PP10. This integrated technology, PIH0-03, adds a highly linear vertical Schottky diode with cut-off frequency over 600GHz, as well as multi-function PIN diodes while preserving the state-of-the-art mmWave performance of the PP10 technology. The availability of monolithic PIN and Schottky diodes with a high performance mmWave transistor enables on-chip integration of a wide range of functions, including mixers, temperature/power detecting, limiters, and high frequency switching, and supports power, low noise and optical applications through100 GHz.

This integrated technology provides users with multiple pathways to add on-chip functionality and reduce the overall die count of complex multi-chip modules used in a variety of end-markets. In addition to high frequency switching, the monolithic PIN diodes can be used for low parasitic capacitance ESD protection circuits, and as an on-chip power limiter to protect sensitive LNAs in phased array radars. The vertical Schottky diodes enable numerous detecting and mixing functions and can be combined with the PIN diodes in unique limiter applications.

“Today’s complex systems and highly competitive markets require increased mmWave performance and more functionality per chip. The PIH0-03 platform is the latest example of how WIN Semiconductors is addressing these critical market needs by offering high performance GaAs technologies with new levels of multifunction integration. To meet the ever-increasing demands of next generation mobile user equipment, wireless infrastructure, fiber optics and military applications, WIN Semiconductors continues to commercialize advanced, highly integrated GaAs solutions and provide our customers a clear technology advantage,” said David Danzilio, Senior Vice President of WIN Semiconductors Corp.

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a distributor of specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions, announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the SAES Pure Gas business, from SAES Getters S.p.A. (“SAES Group”), an advanced functional materials company headquartered in Milan, Italy. The SAES Pure Gas business, a provider of high-capacity gas purification systems used in semiconductor manufacturing and adjacent markets is based in San Luis Obispo, California and will report into the Microcontamination Control division of Entegris. Under the agreement, Entegris will purchase the shares and assets which comprise the SAES Pure Gas business for approximately $355 million, subject to customary purchase price adjustments.

Materials purity plays an increasingly critical role in the performance and reliability of advanced semiconductors as the sensitivity to contamination approaches the parts per quadrillion level. Advanced memory devices require significantly higher gas consumption per processed wafer to support shrinking geometries and multi-layer device architectures. As a result of this heightened sensitivity to molecular contamination and increased gas consumption, semiconductor manufacturers are depending on bulk gas suppliers to deliver process gases that meet new purity requirements.

“With this acquisition, our customers will benefit from a complete portfolio of gas purifications solutions for both bulk and specialty gases,” said Bertrand Loy, president and Chief Executive Officer of Entegris. “We are excited about the value this transaction will create, as it demonstrates our strategy of augmenting our organic growth with high-value acquisitions that leverage our global business platform and broaden our technology portfolio.”

“As we executed our evolutionary strategy for SAES Group and considered potential acquirers for the SAES Pure Gas business, we viewed Entegris as the ideal partner given its leadership in the semiconductor industry, the complementary nature of its filtration and purification offerings, and its financial and operational strengths,” said Massimo della Porta, president of SAES Getters S.p.A.

According to a recent press release issued by SAES Group, the SAES Pure Gas business recorded revenues of €81 million, or $91.5 million, and an adjusted EBITDA of €29.3 million, or $33.1 million, for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2017 and revenues of €25.5 million, or $31 million, and an adjusted EBITDA of €7.8 million, or $9.6 million, for the first quarter of 2018. Entegris intends to fund the acquisition from its available cash and expects that the transaction will be immediately accretive.

The closing of the transaction is subject to the completion of a pre-closing restructuring of certain of SAES Group’s US legal entities and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the next two to four weeks.

Researchers at Oregon State University are looking at a highly durable organic pigment, used by humans in artwork for hundreds of years, as a promising possibility as a semiconductor material.

Findings suggest it could become a sustainable, low-cost, easily fabricated alternative to silicon in electronic or optoelectronic applications where the high-performance capabilities of silicon aren’t required.

Optoelectronics is technology working with the combined use of light and electronics, such as solar cells, and the pigment being studied is xylindein.

“Xylindein is pretty, but can it also be useful? How much can we squeeze out of it?” said Oregon State University physicist Oksana Ostroverkhova. “It functions as an electronic material but not a great one, but there’s optimism we can make it better.”

Xylindien is secreted by two wood-eating fungi in the Chlorociboria genus. Any wood that’s infected by the fungi is stained a blue-green color, and artisans have prized xylindein-affected wood for centuries.

The pigment is so stable that decorative products made half a millennium ago still exhibit its distinctive hue. It holds up against prolonged exposure to heat, ultraviolet light and electrical stress.

“If we can learn the secret for why those fungi-produced pigments are so stable, we could solve a problem that exists with organic electronics,” Ostroverkhova said. “Also, many organic electronic materials are too expensive to produce, so we’re looking to do something inexpensively in an ecologically friendly way that’s good for the economy.”

With current fabrication techniques, xylindein tends to form non-uniform films with a porous, irregular, “rocky” structure.

“There’s a lot of performance variation,” she said. “You can tinker with it in the lab, but you can’t really make a technologically relevant device out of it on a large scale. But we found a way to make it more easily processed and to get a decent film quality.”

Ostroverkhova and collaborators in OSU’s colleges of Science and Forestry blended xylindein with a transparent, non-conductive polymer, poly(methyl methacrylate), abbreviated to PMMA and sometimes known as acrylic glass. They drop-cast solutions both of pristine xylindein and a xlyindein-PMMA blend onto electrodes on a glass substrate for testing.

They found the non-conducting polymer greatly improved the film structure without a detrimental effect on xylindein’s electrical properties. And the blended films actually showed better photosensitivity.

“Exactly why that happened, and its potential value in solar cells, is something we’ll be investigating in future research,” Ostroverkhova said. “We’ll also look into replacing the polymer with a natural product – something sustainable made from cellulose. We could grow the pigment from the cellulose and be able to make a device that’s all ready to go.

“Xylindein will never beat silicon, but for many applications, it doesn’t need to beat silicon,” she said. “It could work well for depositing onto large, flexible substrates, like for making wearable electronics.”

This research, whose findings were recently published in MRS Advances, represents the first use of a fungus-produced material in a thin-film electrical device.

“And there are a lot more of the materials,” Ostroverkhova said. “This is just first one we’ve explored. It could be the beginning of a whole new class of organic electronic materials.”