|
Voltaix, Inc., said
today that they have obtained worldwide exclusive rights to previously unknown
designer silicon germanium (SiGe) precursors developed at Arizona State
University. Voltaix has licensed the technology from Arizona Technology
Enterprises (AZTE), Arizona State University's technology commercialization
company.
"Chip makers are
increasingly looking to the primary materials manufacturers for solutions to
their manufacturing challenges," said Dr. Matthew Stephens, Chief
Operating Officer of Voltaix. "Through this agreement, Voltaix is able to
provide the new materials and new deposition technologies needed to help our
customers improve the performance of their devices and the throughput of their
processes."
Dr. John Kouvetakis
at Arizona State University with a team of researchers developed the precursors
that could could lead to breakthroughs in the manufacture of advanced CMOS
substrates, CMOS-integrated MEMS, thin film amorphous solar cells, and
nano-scale quantum-dot silicon
photonics.
For the first time,
it is possible to deposit smooth, fully relaxed germanium-rich SiGe layers at
temperatures under 500 degrees C that contain less than 10E6 dislocations/cm2.
Further, at higher temperatures, it is possible to deposit arrays of highly
uniform quantum dots with precisely controlled stoichiometry, according to Dr
Kouvetakis.
The key building
blocks of this technology are the entire silyl-germyl sequence of molecules
(H3Ge)xSiH4-x (x = 1-4). A new class of epitaxial layers and coherent islands
(quantum dots) of Ge rich Si-Ge-Sn optoelectronic materials, fully integrated
with Si technologies could now be possible.
The new precursors
were first disclosed in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am.
Chem. Soc., 127 (27), 9855 -9864, 2005)
and Applied Physics Letters (Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 080131, 2005).
|
News 
