Saturday, May 8, 2021
Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased 4% to 3,337 million square inches in the first quarter of 2021
Webinar - Decadal Plan for Semiconductors: New Compute Trajectories for Energy Efficiency
Friday, May 7, 2021
BALD Engineering & Friends Virtual ALD Fest June 27-30 (tbd), 2021 with Free Beer
BALD Engineering Virtual ALD Fest June 27-30 (tbd), 2021 with Free Beer #ALDep #ALDALE2021
— BALD Engineering AB (@jv3sund) May 7, 2021
Applied Materials MEMORY MASTER CLASS 2021 - slide deck
I missed this opportunity, however, I am grateful for Lita Shon-Roy just sending me the link to the slide deck - Tack så mycket.
Slide deck for the Memory Class LINK
Next class up is Logic June 16, 2021 followed by more interesting topics in 2nd half 2021:
- Specialty semiconductors
- Heterogeneous design and advanced packaging
- Inspection and process control
You are welcome to contact us at TECHCET (jsundqvist@techcet.com) to dig further into the future surge of materials to realize the data-driven economy:
- ALD/CVD precursors
- Metals/PVD Targets
- Photoresist
- Wet chemicals
- CMP pads & slurries
- Bulk, Rare and Speciality gases
- Wafers
Applied Materials Introduces Materials Engineering Solutions for DRAM Scaling
- New Draco™ hard mask material co-optimized with Sym3® Y etcher to accelerate DRAM capacitor scaling
- DRAM makers adopting Black Diamond®, the low-k dielectric material pioneered by Applied Materials to overcome interconnect scaling challenges in logic
- High-k metal gate transistors now being introduced in advanced DRAM designs to boost performance and reduce power while shrinking the periphery logic to improve area and cost
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
BASF and Umicore have entered a non-exclusive patent cross-license agreement for battery cathode active materials and their precursors
“This agreement with Umicore enables even faster, more sustainable and innovative battery materials development to serve our customers including battery cell manufacturers and automotive,” said Dr. Peter Schuhmacher, President of BASF Catalysts. “The continuous development of battery materials will accelerate the transformation towards full electrification and thus support the world’s efforts to fight climate change.”
Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore, commented: “This agreement with BASF is an important step in promoting cathode material innovation. It strengthens our technology positioning and further increases our ability to develop bespoke solutions which meet the most stringent performance and quality standards of our battery and automotive customers.”
Imec and AIXTRON Demonstrate 200 mm GaN Epitaxy on AIX G5+ C
Imec and AIXTRON Demonstrate 200 mm GaN Epitaxy on AIX G5+ C for 1200V Applications with Breakdown in Excess of 1800V
EMD Electronics Creates Center of Excellence for Atomic Engineering by Combining Thin Films R&D Lab with Intermolecular
- Unique capabilities with novel organo-metallic precursors and applications will enable customers to explore and test advanced materials for next-generation devices
- Centralized innovation hub to speed up the delivery of material solutions to customers
EMD Electronics "We've established a Center of Excellence for Atomic Engineering! Our Thin Films Applications R&D lab has merged with Intermolecular's advanced electronics capabilities to create a centralized innovation hub for our customers. This will enable seamless integration of testing and deposition of new materials for next-generation semiconductors." (Quote and photo above from EMD Electronics LinkedIn Announcement LINK)
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
CBS 60 Minutes - Chip shortage highlights U.S. dependence on fragile supply chain
- Pat Gelsinger: 25 years ago, the United States produced 37% of the world's semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. Today, that number has declined to just 12%
- Within the world of global collaboration, there's intense competition. Days after Intel announced spending $20 billion on two new fabs, TSMC announced it would spend $100 billion over three years on R&D, upgrades, and a new fab in Phoenix, Arizona, Intel's backyard, where the Taiwanese company will produce the chips Apple needs but the Americans can't make.
Taiwan-based TSMC, which supplies microchips for most U.S. cars, tells 60 Minutes it will be caught up with car chip production by the end of June. So, does that mean the dire shortage will end in two months? Well, not quite. https://t.co/Wj1yFffaKS pic.twitter.com/Zx3dnRwU0o
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 2, 2021
Monday, May 3, 2021
APTC from South Korea is developing CVD, ALD and oxide etcher systems as it expands its portfolio
Saturday, May 1, 2021
Jusung to spend 36.3 billion won to build new production facility
Nanexa AB started the first clinical study with ALD based PharmaShell® at the Karolinska University Hospital
Nanexa AB is a nanotechnology drug delivery company focusing on the development of PharmaShell®, a new and groundbreaking drug delivery system with great potential in a number of medical indications. Within the framework of PharmaShell®, Nanexa has partnership agreements with among others, AstraZeneca.
Friday, April 30, 2021
The US Patent Office has approved AlixLabs’ patent application for nanofabrication by ALE Pitch Splitting (APS)
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Frontiers in Materials Manufacturing: Materials for Printed Hybrid Electronics
Angel Yanguas-Gil, Principal Materials Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory will talk about how the combination of novel materials (with and without ALD) and brain-inspired computing can enable smart sensors and edge computing based on printed electronics.
Hear from experts including:
- Matthew Dyson, Technology Analyst, IDTechEx
- Eric Forsythe, Program Manager, NextFlex Manufacturing Institute, Army Research Laboratory
- Stijn Gillissen, Global Head Printed Electronics, Henkel
- Mark Hersam, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
- Melbs LeMieux, Co-Founder and President, Electroninks
- Matthew Tirrell, Dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago; Senior Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
- Sihong Wang, Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago
- Angel Yanguas-Gil, Principal Materials Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
Kenneth Hörhammer joins Picosun as Vice President, Sales
"The potential for ALD is almost limitless, and Picosun is spearheading this technology globally."
Friday, April 23, 2021
Beneq and E+R Group enter strategic partnership for roll-to-roll ALD
The revolutionary Genesis ALD platform enables next-generation battery manufacturers to scale up quickly
- Passivation of cathodes and anodes for various types of lithium-ion and solid-state batteries
- Conductive layers and encapsulation for flexible solar cells
- Moisture barriers for flexible electronics
Genesis ALD
World’s only commercially available roll-to-roll ALD system. Learn more.Thursday, April 22, 2021
Highlights of Prof. Erwin Kessels’ Recent Webinar on “Plasma-Assisted Atomic Layer Deposition: From Basics to Applications” Organized by the American Vacuum Society (AVS)
Interesting Highlights and Key Takeaways
This is a wonderful summary of the highlights & takeaways of my AVS Webinar early February. Thank you Abishekkumar and Jonas! And people are invited to contact me if they want to know more. I was (and still am) to also come back to it at https://t.co/Kg8by78GCa
— Erwin Kessels (@ErwinKessels) April 22, 2021
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
ASM International and ALD opens up 2021 with a strong quarter in Logic & Foundry segment
ASM International N.V. (Euronext Amsterdam: ASM) today reports its first quarter 2021 operating results (unaudited) in accordance with IFRS.
- New orders at €411 million were 8% above the level of last quarter.
- Revenue for the first quarter of 2021 was €394 million and increased 14% compared to the previous quarter due to strong market demand.
- The gross profit margin was 49.5% in Q1 2021 compared to 45.2% in the previous quarter, mainly due to a favorable mix.
- The operating result was €125 million compared to €78 million in the previous quarter.
- Normalized net earnings for the first quarter of 2021 were €125 million, €43 million higher compared to Q4 2020.
- Gartner expects WFE to increase by 23% in 2021 (April 2021), up from +8% still predicted in December 2020
- VLSI Research expects WFE to increase by 22% in 2021 (April ’21), up from a previous forecast of +12% last February
“Based upon the current market developments, the wafer fab equipment (WFE) market is expected to grow by a high-teens to low twenties percentage in 2021.”
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Spatial atomic layer deposition system FHR.Star.400x300-SALD delivered
Saturday, April 17, 2021
Unraveling the different causes behind ferroelectricity in HfO2
Interplay between oxygen defects and dopants: effect on structure and performance of HfO2-based ferroelectrics
Monica Materano et alInorg. Chem. Front., 2021, Advance Article https://doi.org/10.1039/D1QI00167A
Friday, April 16, 2021
ALD coating for delayed drug delivery via the lungs for the treatment of respiratory diseases by Astra Zeneca and TU Delft
- electronic implants (IC, BioMEMS, Pacemaker)
- prosthetic implants (spine, trauma, hip, knee, dental)
- active pharmaceuticals ingredients for delayed drug delivery
Thursday, April 15, 2021
BENEQ P800 coating batches of 300 mm showerhead plates for advanced semiconductor wafer processing equipment
How it is done - Here a cool video of a BENEQ P800 coating 300 mm showerhead plates for some advanced semiconductor wafer processing equipment.
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Kurt J Lesker installs an ALD150LE system at the University of Minnesota Nano Centre
Characterization of Annealing and Dopant Activation Processes Using Differential Hall Effect Metrology (DHEM) by Active Layer Parametrics (ALP) Inc.
Above, cross-sectional TEM images of the P ion-implanted samples after annealing and corresponding depth profiles from DHEM.