Honors for copper design and IC innovation
11/01/2000
PHOENIX - In SRC's Copper IC Design Challenge, a national technology contest for university students that encourages exploration of the possibilities of copper in leading-edge IC manufacturing, three Phase II winners were announced at TechCon 2000 in September. In addition, Farhang Shadman (University of Arizona) received the first Landmark Innovation Award for contributions in advanced semiconductor technology.
The design challenge was sponsored by SRC, Novellus Systems Inc., Speed Fam-IPEC and UMC. Jeff Benzing, executive vice president of systems development, engineering and operations for Novellus, announced that the University of Minnesota, under the guidance of team leader Ramesh Harjani, captured first place and a $35,000 prize for the design "RF Front-end Design with Copper Passive Components." Team members are Jonghae Kim, Jim Koeppe and Ming-ta Hsieh.
The University of Florida earned second place and $25,000 for the design "A Wireless Clock Distribution System: Clock Receiver and Transmitter Circuits." Team leader Professor Kenneth O and Brian Floyd accepted the award.
 Contestants are honored at SRC's Copper IC Design Challenge. |
Third place recognition and $15,000 were presented to Carnegie Mellon University for the design "Micromachined High-Q Inductors in 0.18-micron Copper Interconnect Low-K CMOS Process." The team was represented by team leader Professor Gary Fedder and Hasnain Lakdawala.
Also recognized with awards were Phase I winners and Phase II participants Georgia Institute of Technology for "High Performance Clock and Power Distribution Networks for Gigascale Integration Using Copper Interconnect," and North Carolina State University for "A High-speed and High-capacity Single-chip Copper Crossbar."
UMC helped move the contest from theory to manufacturing reality by providing the copper design contest with fabrication services for the Phase II designs. This enabled the teams to translate their design ideas to actual silicon using UMC's processes, and document the results in relation to their projections.
SRC's president and CEO, Larry Sumney, commented on the originality of the contest format.
"We were able to offer processing for designs to practice what would never be available to these teams otherwise," said Sumney. "The students took these opportunities and came back with solutions and practical applications for these processes."
Benzing also explained the importance of this particular process in semiconductor manufacturing and design.
"Copper was viewed in the past as cursed for its non-workability. This contest is extremely timely as new copper technologies are enabling devices to advance to faster performances and smaller sizes," said Benzing.
For the competing teams, the challenge was to use the new copper technology to come up with new designs.
"We had the challenge of actually putting many designs on a single chip," explained University of Minnesota's Harjani. "We replicated something that we had done with the aluminum process. We did some analysis and were able to fabricate a new RF process using copper."
"The exciting thing about our group was that we worked in RF design for the contest and we are not really a group filled with RF designers; not only did we get to learn about working in the copper process, but we got to learn RF at the same time," said Carnegie Mellon University team leader Fedder.
In concert with the copper design awards announcement was an individual honor. Jack Kilby presented SRC's Landmark Innovation Award to Dr. Farhang Shadman of the University of Arizona for his advanced research in semiconductor technology in the area of environmentally benign manufacturing.
Funded by the SRC, the award recognizes patented inventions that have made a long-term contribution to the semiconductor industry. Shadman's research in water and energy consumption reduction, and water and gas purification, in semiconductor manufacturing has improved the environmental safety of processes and saved the industry millions of dollars, according to the SRC.
"The award really has two significances," said Shadman. "One is the award itself because it recognizes the efforts which result in the technology that we have developed, but also that this award stands for successful technology transfer. These days it is not easy to transfer technology from university to industry; it doesn't happen a lot. The fact that the SRC has been allowing us to create some new technology, transfer it and, in fact, having used it in the industry is very rewarding for an engineer."
SABER Institute expands offerings
San Jose, Calif. - Schlumberger Test & Transactions, a business segment of Schlumberger Limited, has announced that the SABER (Schlumberger Advanced Business Engineer Resources) Technology Institute is expanding the range of classes offered. New test methodology courses and interactive lectures include coverage of additional topics, such as Design for FIBability, Semiconductor Processing Technology and Failure Analysis.
Since its inception in September 1999, the SABER Technology Institute has served more than 1,500 students taking over 200 classes. Taking advantage of a varied schedule of classes that include product certification programs, interactive lectures and test methodology courses, semiconductor engineering and operational personnel at all levels learn best practices and advanced techniques to optimize their productivity and advance their careers. Institute experts can also come to a customer's site, assess their educational requirements, develop a comprehensive training plan, and implement, teach and deliver it onsite.
The SABER Technology Institute's full class schedule and online registration is available at www.slb.com/ate/sti.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
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PEOPLE
 Gil Olachea |
Kulicke & Soffa, Willow Grove, Pa., has named Gil Olachea vice president of strategic business and product marketing for Flip Chip Technologies.
Willow Grove, Pa.-based Quad Systems Corp. promoted John Perrotta to vice president of technical services, and Frank E. Gordon to senior manager of technical support. Michael Nadreau has rejoined National Starch and Chemical Co.'s Electronic and Engineering Materials Group as sales and marketing manager for Emca-Remex, headquartered in Montgomeryville, Pa.
Rockleigh, N.J.-based KDF Electronic & Vacuum Services Inc. hired Dr. Subhadra "Su" Gupta as director of technology.
 John Beyers |
Asymtek, a Nordson Co., Amherst, Ohio, promoted John Byers to director of technical support.
Michael Bowman has been named vice president of sales and service for RVSI Vanguard, Tucson, Ariz., a business unit of the Semiconductor Equipment Group of Robotic Vision Systems Inc.
COMPANIES
Palatine, Ill.-based BMI Inc. was awarded ISO 9001 quality certification by TUV Management Service.
Lambda Technologies Inc., Morrisville, N.C., announced that Thermoset, Lord Chemical Products has qualified two of its electronics assembly materials for curing by Lambda Technologies' Variable Frequency Microwave (VFM) technology. The qualified materials, CircuitSAF MD-140 and ME-526, are recent additions to Thermoset's line of advanced circuit assembly materials.