The big picture for nanotech
10/01/2005
Few technologies in recent memory have generated more confusion than nanotechnology. While the popular media sing its praises as a futuristic science that will someday revolutionize everything from materials science to medical research, semiconductor manufacturers point out that they have been involved in high-volume production at the nanoscale for many years. The result has been a misunderstanding about what nanotech really is, how far R&D has progressed, and what opportunities currently exist for component manufacturers, materials suppliers, and tool vendors.
In an attempt to answer these questions, a first-of-its-kind study of the nanotechnology field was undertaken recently by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (Semi) with the support of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The report, scheduled to be released by the beginning of this month, is based on in-depth interviews with approximately 150 semiconductor manufacturers, materials suppliers, and equipment suppliers, in roughly equal proportions.
So that all were using like terms, the survey team settled on a definition of nanotechnology devised by the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), which states that nanotechnology is “research and technology development at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1-100 nanometer range, to provide a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices, and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small size.”
What this means is that nanotechnology is “not just small, but small with different or novel properties that we can control,” notes Lubab Sheet, senior director of nanotechnology at Semi. Indeed, certain materials demonstrate different behaviors at molecular levels than they do in bulk form. And researchers are actively investigating, for example, ways to control silicon’s unique optical properties at nanoscales and integrate them in CMOS.
Among the key findings of the survey was that a surprising number of companies are already deeply involved in nanotech research. More than 80% of survey respondents say they are participating in government-based nanotech programs, and about 65% are involved in university and consortia nanotech work. In addition, more than half of all semiconductor manufacturers are involved in collaborative nanotech R&D with equipment and materials suppliers, which suggests that large-scale commercialization is accelerating.
In fact, the most promising applications in semiconductors, according to manufacturers, are device miniaturization, memory devices (such as MRAM, FRAM, and NRAM), and carbon nanotube (CNT) interconnects and transistors. (See Tech News, page 16, for the latest real-world progress in nanotechnology and devices.)
In terms of demand for nanotech materials in electronics, the global market is expected to grow from approximately $250 million this year to about $750 million by 2008, according to preliminary survey results. A notable trend is that the use of the most revolutionary materials in semiconductor applications - such as CNTs, nanowires, designer molecules, and the like - is expected to decline as a percent of the total during the next few years. Faster adoption by the electronics industry is predicted to occur in applications of evolutionary materials, such as strained silicon, low-k dielectrics, photoresists, and so on, largely because these can be integrated more easily with existing processes.
Meanwhile, the demand for nanotools - for deposition, implantation, lithography, thermal processing, surface conditioning, atomic manipulation, metrology, and inspection - is forecasted to be much larger than the demand for semiconductor-based nanomaterials. In fact, the global market for nanotools is expected to grow from about $1.2 billion this year to more than $2.1 billion by 2008.
The reason for the larger demand for tools is that the biggest opportunities for nanomaterials, at least in the near term, are in markets outside electronics, such as automobiles, energy, and biotech. Adoption will be greater in these applications initially because the requirements for purity, reproducibility, and consistency are significantly lower, while the markets themselves are much bigger.
So what message can the semiconductor industry take from this big picture of the nanotech industry? First, the biggest opportunity in nanotech will be for semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, especially those looking to expand into new markets. Opportunities also exist for tool suppliers who can modify current equipment to lower the barriers to adoption by semiconductor manufacturers who see new nanomaterials as key to continued scaling and the development of new memory devices and other components. And finally, as with any disruptive technology, nanotech will create opportunities for newcomers to enter the market with novel tools, materials, and products, either as standalone startups or in collaboration with established companies.
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Phil LoPiccolo
Editor-in-Chief