Valencia, 18th of July, 2023. Funded by the regional government infrastructure programme of Generalitat Valenciana, through grant GVA/IDIFEDER/2021/046, UPVfab has acquired capital equipment to complete the silicon nitride process equipment line.
The recent acquisitions include the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) tool by French vendor Alpsitec and the high-density plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (HD-PECVD) by British supplier Nordiko Technical Service Ltd, configured with SiH4 and N2O lines by Nippon Gases, for the deposition of SiO2. Together with the equipment retrofitted and newly acquired since 2018, UPVfab silicon nitride line consists of diffusion an oxidation furnaces up to 8 inch wafers for wet and dry oxidation of silicon, and low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) deposition of stoichiometric and low-stress silicon nitride, with systems by Tempress. Silicon nitride and amorphous silicon PECVD, inductive-coupled plasma reactive ion etcher (IC-RIE) and plasma vapor deposition (PVD) sputter are in a four-chamber 6 inch clustered too built by Nordiko, with automated wafer loading translation stage robot by Hine Automation. Alongside the fast-prototyping direct-write lithography tool by Quantum Design GmbH, for substrates above 8 inch, UPVfab can now host process development of technologies based on silicon and its dielectrics, combined with typical metals.
“This capacity is rather unique in Spain, with pilot-production grade tools, so our resident companies and research groups can develop activities from low to mid TRLs (1-6)”, Gloria Micó, Facility Manager for UPVfab shared. The main technical areas with activity in UPVfab are photonics, electronics and chemical engineering. They all share common substrate and process materials based in silicon nitrides and oxides. Pascual Muñoz, director for UPVfab explained “while some researchers fare developing processes for a silicon nitride membrane for particle acceleration, the photonics group is establishing their host silicon nitride waveguide technology as basis for their multi-spectral hybrid integrated photonic platform”.
For more information, contact:
Prof. Dr. Pascual Muñoz
Director, UPVfab
pascual.munoz@upv.es
Dr. Gloria Micó
Facility Manager, UPVfab
gloria.mico@upv.es
Universitat Politècnica de València
+34.963.879.760
https://www.fab.upv.es/