Atotech Collaborates with
Case Western Reserve
on Nanotechnology
Atotech has signed agreements with
Case Western Reserve University to
enhance development of the company's
global metallization technology, and support its material science and application
failure analysis activities in Europe, Asia
and the United States.
The university's department of
Materials Science and Engineering and
its Institute of Advanced Materials will
further strengthen Atotech's chemistry and
analytical capabilities, the company says.
Atotech sponsors 16 technology centers, including a semiconductor chemistry
R&D; and application center at the College
of Nano-scale Science and Engineering
in Albany, N.Y. Each site is responsible
for supporting local and international
development and optimization of plating
chemistries for tailored regional processes and applications. According to
Atotech, the department of Materials Science and Engineering at CWRU has the
ability to use high-resolution instruments
to support nano-scale inspections as well
as failure and property analysis, including
trace element analytics.
Atotech will establish an organic
chemistry laboratory dedicated to supporting new plating additive development
specialized for small-scale feature plating. This laboratory is expected to further
enhance the company's semiconductor
R&D; activities, which focus primarily on
the optimization of copper plating process
solutions using advanced polymers for
structures down to the 22-nm node. Additional research is being performed on
plating process development for sub-22nm node structures.
Also through these contracts, Atotech
and CWRU will work to develop new
chemistries and processes for manufacturing smaller semiconductor devices
than have previously been possible in
routine production. According to the
company, such smaller semiconductors
are critical to the fabrication of more
powerful and more capable computers,
phones and other electronic devices. n
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