Machinery & Capabilities

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In the Fabrication Laboratory you have the capability of working with a wide range of equipment & materials:

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Chemical Mechanical Polishing Room

 

Chemical Mechanical Polisher (CMP)

Polishes the wafer discs using slurry silica and concave/convex rotation.

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Scanning Acoustic Microscope (SAM)

Allows the layered patterns to be made visible to the human eye.

 

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QAMEC Laboratory

 

Furnaces

1000 O C Quartz Tube Heaters – silicon growth through Hydrogen and Oxide.

Quartz Boat carries each wafer through atmosphere or Vacuum furnaces.

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2 x Cleaning Station

Cleaning and etching stations for the wafers.

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Metal Deposition System

Uses Tugsten (W) – A self-built machine designed and built by a PhD student (Set for refurbishment in coming year).

1000 O C Quartz Tube Heaters – silicon growth through Hydrogen and Oxide. Quartz Boat carries each wafer through atmosphere or Vacuum furnaces.

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Rapid Thermal Annealing

Modifying machine machine with 2 settings:

21oC – 1000 o C in 4-6hours or 2mins.

 

Vacuum Bonding Machine

2 Quartz plates forced together to bond plates/wafers.

 

Copper Sputtering System

Plasma operated system.

 

Plasmalab System 100

Low temperature system (300 o C)

Atomic Layer Deposition –

Deposits material matter 1 atom at a time.

 

MEMs Machine

Plasma etching systems.

i) Standard Etcher:

20 microns – Shallow etching.

ii) ICP Etcher (Inductively Coupled Plasma):

500 microns – Deep etching.

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Photolithography Room

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Photoresistor

Ultra Violet (UV rays) controlled.

100 o C Hotplate

 

Scanning Acoustic Microscope (SAM)

Allows the layered patterns to be made visible to the human eye.

 

Photoresistor

Ultra Violet (UV rays) controlled.

100 o C Hotplate

Solvent and Photo-reactive compounds

1.6microns (thin and spun)

 

Exposing Machine (Austrian Manufacturer)

300W Lamp to expose wafer (sits on stage).

Positive resistor picked up by UV light.

 

Non-Destructive UV

Nano specification – thickness measurement.

 

Talysurf CGI – Reflective Lighting Technology

White light Interferometry

Surface Analysis – roughness over large area.

 

Vacuum Hotplate (Heaters)

Removes solvent

Adhesive to water

 

Plasma Activation System

Surface Chemistry of wafer.

Oxygen, energise gas and plasma respond to glow of light.

 

Microscope

500microns (0.6mm on wafer)

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Services Room

 

Contains all gaseous supplies and mechanics to operate machines and laboratory

atmosphere.

 

Water supply:

i) Mains water – cooling.

ii) De-ionised water – super clean (not drinkable).

 

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Machinery Capabilities

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Etching, ICP and RIE

Layer deposition, ALD, PECVD, CVD, APCVD

Lithography, proximity contact, double side alignment and e-beam

Wafer bonding, Si, Ge, glass, sapphire, compound layers

Chemical mechanical polishing, Si and Ge

MEMS – Microelectromechanical Systems

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Lithography:

EV 420 sided contact aligner. Min feature size = 4µm

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Mask Making:

Design and production of 125-150mm 2 chrome coated glass receptical

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CVD Processing:

Low Temperature oxide (LTO), LPCVD/PECVD Si 3 N 4. LPVCD Polycrystalline silicon and amorphous silicon. ALD HfO 2 and Al 2 O 3.

 

Thermal Processing:

Wet and dry Oxidation. High temperature annealing. Rapid Thermal Annealing. Solid Source diffusion.

 

Plasma Etching:

RIE of Si 3 N 4 SiO 2 and Silicon. STS etching system. Alcatel ICP etching system for DRIE

etch of silicon (BOSCH).

 

Metallisation:

RF and DC sputtering (W, Ti, Ta, Ni, Cu, TiW, Al). CVD tungsten and tungsten silicide

(WF 6 -H 2 -SiH 4 ).

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Chemical Mechanical Polishing:

Silicon, Polysilicon, Germanium, Copper.