Picosun solution enables stretchable organic electronics manufacturing on large scale

ESPOO, Finland, 12th of May 2022 – Organic electronics enable everyday devices such as displays, lighting and sensors to have high energy efficiency, light weight and low manufacturing costs. These benefits have made organic electronics a mainstream technology today and great steps have been taken to realize the technology’s true potential. Finally, flexible and stretchable circuitry can be fabricated, paving the way for wearable devices and e-textiles.

This technological leap has left behind traditional encapsulation methods, such as heavy glass lids with limited stretchability. The biggest downside of organic electronics, however, is their susceptibility to oxidation by moisture. This moisture ingress can have a direct impact on device performance and longevity. To address this challenge, thin film encapsulation solutions (TFEs) have been introduced as a key technology, heavily relying on vacuum-based thin film deposition techniques like atomic layer deposition (ALD). Ultra-thin ceramic ALD films serve as an effective moisture barrier but can crack under stress unless combined with more elastic molecular layer deposition (MLD) films.

Picosun has brought a stable MLD process to the realm of batch processing with PICOSUN® P-300B ALD tool with batch sizes up to 27 pieces of 200 mm wafers. The results show wafer-to-wafer uniformity of 1% and several Å/min growth rates. When combined with ALD in a nanolaminate, the resulting TFE can resist defects when up to 2% tensile stress is applied and the coatings exhibit a steady-state and effective water vapour transfer rate (WVTR) in a range of 10-6 g/m2*d in ambient conditions, when measured from a very large sample area (3320 mm2) to reflect a real-world application.

“We see immense possibilities for our customers with the Picosun’s proven capabilities of depositing ultra-barrier performance TFEs on large scale. As an example, the future OLED manufacturing can be upscaled without fearing for the reliability of the devices”, states Juhana Kostamo, VP, Industrial Business Area of Picosun Group.

Semiconductor Materials at a Critical Tipping Point - Key Industry Issues Revealed

San Diego, CA, May 10, 2022: TECHCET—the electronic materials advisory firm providing business and technology information— held its highly successful and well-attended 2022 Critical Materials Conference in Chandler, Arizona on April 28th and 29th. Over 300 attendees and speakers participated in the event to hear about and to discuss semiconductor material issues and trends that are critical to the entire semiconductor industry supply chain—now and in the future.

2022 CMC Conference Keynote Speaker, John Whitman, Corporate Vice President, Operations Central Team & Procurement at Micron Technologies Corp., and Karey Holland, Ph.D., Sr. Advisor and CMC Conference Co-Chair, TECHCET

The opening keynote for the conference was delivered by John Whitman, Corporate Vice President, Operations Central Team & Procurement; Micron Technologies Corp. and addressed the topic of “Covid Impacts on our Supply Assurance Playbook”. The Covid pandemic and subsequent logistic and other supply chain issues over the past two years have highlighted critical issues for the semiconductor industry. Just-in-time delivery has lessened as a procurement priority, and now manufacturers focus on supply chain stability. It is important for device makers to build their supply chain around Business Continuity Plans (BCP) so to ensure production schedules are maintained.

Industry-wide, there is an opportunity for companies to share information through digitization of supply-chain data. With sharing of information and data, companies across the supply chain can collaborate and solve critical issues with respect to materials delivery and performance, thus optimizing semiconductor processing.

This technical conference includes 5 impactful sessions with focuses on 1) Business Trends & Global Issues, 2) Immediate Challenges of Materials & Manufacturing, 3) Future Challenges for Equipment & Component Processes, 4) Emerging Materials & Processes, and 5) Materials for Advanced Packaging and Heterogeneous Integration.

The Conference has just opened up registration for “After Hours” interaction offering online viewing of presentation videos and pdf downloads, and virtual networking opportunities with other “attendees.”On Day 1, sessions 1 through 3 cover a gamut of topics critical to the semiconductor industry supply chain. Topics from the industry outlook for devices, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials, to water supply challenges, green manufacturing initiatives, and workforce development were all discussed.

On Day 2, the event focused on emerging materials applications including materials needed for 3nm and smaller technology nodes as well as material challenges of interposes versus bridges and other issues concerning wafer level modeling materials.

For more information about how to attend the CMC Conference After Hours, go to:

https://cmcfabs.org/cmc-conference-2022/

NCD supplied additional ALD equipment for special protective coating

Recently NCD supplied additional ALD equipment to the customer based in Korea. It is for coating products used in semiconductor equipment to protect from corrosion and plasma arcing.

This re-contracted equipment is Lucida GSH Series ALD. It is a fast and efficient ALD protective layer coating system with lower precursor usage than existing equipment. The customer is looking forward to extending the lifetime of high cost products through uniform and high quality ALD coating.

This repeat ordered supply shows that the customer has had confidence in the NCD’s ALD technology and the excellence of the equipment.

<LucidaTM GSH Series ALD>