Although I've attended Photonics West a few times over the years, it's not one of my primary trade show or conference destinations.
I'm much more of a chip guy than an optics guy, after all. Earlier this week in San Jose, I had a chance to walk Photonics---even though I can't talk photonics very well.
What I found confirmed what I had heard from many who can walk the walk and talk the talk in photonics as well as in semiconductor, MEMS, nanoelectronics, and other related fields closer to my comfort zone: The overlaps and synergies among the various disciplines seem to be expanding, albeit tentatively in certain quarters.
Like SPIE's other major conferences, Photonics features hundreds of conference presentations, poster papers, and related technical sessions and panels. Since my time was limited (I was only there for part of a day), I wanted to focus on the exhibitors. But I did listen to one paper presented by Jack Martin of Analog Devices' micromachined products division, who talked about his team's development efforts to come up with a wafer-capping solution for MEMS devices using fab-friendly metals.
In this case, the metal used is aluminum, which shows great promise for metal sealing for reasons of yield, reliability, and cost. Tests have shown that when joined properly, aluminum bonds are strong and hermetic. But the jury's still out on this capping approach. Uniform force across the wafer is much more important with aluminum bonds than it is with glass frit or solder bonds, according to Martin. Since high-force bonding tools remain in the development stage and are not quite ready for production prime time, the ultimate manufacturability of this bonding approach has yet to be proven.
Once back in the halls, I talked at length with at least a dozen exhibitors of different stripes and ran into a few familiar faces. While chatting with KLA-Tencor's Fabio Consentino at his booth, he noted that this was the first time the recently acquired ADE Phase-Shift unit had exhibited as part of the KLA-T brand. He admitted that he was still getting up to speed on the newly integrated technology and products, but noted the extensive use of the tools in measuring texture, roughness, and film thickness on glass. I asked him whether KLA-T was looking into applications for the surface profilers and related metrology systems in the emerging flexible electronics market, and he told me they were.
Although their substrates may not be flexible, some materials companies are benefiting from the burgeoning synergies of opto, MEMS, and ICs. Claiming to be the largest European synthetic sapphire crystal growing facility, Russian manufacturer Monocrystal does alot of business at home, but even more outside its home country. In addition to its line of polished optics products, Natasha Radzikhovskaya told me that the company manufactures sapphire wafers for LEDs as well as silicon-on-sapphire (with that great "SOS" acronym) wafers for compound semi, pressure sensors, and other applications. The SOS substrates are not bonded, but made with an epitaxial process using MOCVD tools.
Speaking of epitaxy, I also talked with Dave Ahmari, exec VP of biz dev for EpiWorks, an epi wafer manufacturer based in Champaign, IL. He told me they make all sorts of custom and standard wafers for the III-V compound semi crowd, for applications ranging from wireless handsets to high-powered laser diodes and photodetectors. They've had a few MEMS customers, a gradual buildup of "incremental" nanoscale III-V orders, and even a bit of biomedical demand too. The company sometimes acts as a second source for some of the bigger wafer houses. EpiWorks has just added a fourth Aixtron 2600 reactor to their production line, according to Ahmari, and has plans for further expansion.
Although Ahmari wouldn't confirm it, one EpiWorks customer may be Global Communication Semiconductors (GCS), a pure-play optoelectronics/compound semi foundry with its fab in Torrance, CA, a city near Los Angeles not usually known for its prowess in microtechnologies. VP of worldwide sales and marketing Simon Yu said they do about 20% of their business as an opto foundry, but that percentage is growing. The majority of GCS's business is fabbing RFICs and MMICs for both IDMs and fabless companies. The company hasn't delved into MEMS yet, according to Yu, but might consider it, if the right opportunity arose. GCS has 100-mm (4-in.) capability now, but plans to expand to 150-mm when needed, although it will have to do that somewhere other than its current facility.
One company that sees "more interdisciplinary technology and engineering than ever" is the Capovani Brothers, a used equipment vendor based in Scotia, NY. Brother Ed told me it was the first time they had exhibited at Photonics West and were "very happy with the show." He noted the overlap between semiconductor and photonics, citing an example of a job where his company modified an Applied Materials' Precision 5000 for a customer so it could process sapphire wafers. As he pointed out, there are many potential applications, nano and otherwise, where even 20-year-old used chipmaking gear can provide a viable research or process development solution.
With a wide range of applications and customers, Israel-based Nanonics Imaging seems to be riding that interdisciplinary wave. Eran Maayan explained the company's open design, which allows for its AFM and probe microscopy systems to be integrated on one platform with optical microscopy, SEM, Raman, and other imaging and analytical tools. Nanonics' worldwide installed base of systems---which Maayan characterized as being in "the hundreds"--- includes corporate, university, and research labs working in semiconductor, MEMS, photonics, biomedical, emerging nanotech, and pure R&D areas. He was cagey about whether the company plans to make production-worthy tools for chipmakers or other volume manufacturers in the future, given the slow speed of the current models. But he said eventually placing systems in the fabs' failure analysis labs could be a way to get closer to manufacturing, much as tools like FIB, SEM, and AFM have migrated from the lab to the fab.
Admittedly, some of the Photonics exhibitors I spoke with---including Brooks Automation's vacuum products division, Veeco, and Ferrotec---said they had seen no customers or other attendees asking about MEMS or nanotech applications. All were quick to add, however, that didn't mean they didn't have MEMS or nano customers, just that they hadn't met any at Photonics. I was told the number of "nanotechnology" companies listed in the show organizer's indices has grown, but I also know the drill of checking off product category boxes when filling out an exhibitor registration form, whether or not your company fits each category completely.
But that's a minor quibble. Photonics West provides a compelling forum for the increasing scientific and commercial convergence of photons and electrons, electronics and biology, wafers and glass, and optics and MEMS, as well as the almost limitless potential of the panoply of emerging nanoscale applications.
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