Microfabrication

The microfabrication laboratory is a well equipped laboratory with the ability to do a wide variety of processing and fabrication steps in-house. A class 100 clean room contains equipment for optical lithography with a OAI model 800 mask aligner which has front side and backside IR and optical capabilities. It also contains a 2 spin coaters, programmable hot plates and a wet bench for processing. Other wet processing is performed in a dedicated acid bench with wash down capabilities under Down Draft HEPA filtered Air. A separate plating and chemical area exists for other processes. Metallizations may be carried out using a 6-pocket electron beam evaporator and 2 thermal Evaporators. Dielectrics can be deposited in the laboratory by our or thermal evaporation as well as E beam evaporation. An Intlvac reactive sputtering and Oxford OPAL Plasma ALD systems will soon be on line. Surface preparations and material removal are accomplished by using a Oxford NGP 80 RIE as well as a Branson Plasma Cleaner. The laboratory is equipped with a rapid thermal annealer, high temperature and vacuum ovens as well as a multizone tube furnace for a wide variety of processing steps.

Characterizations may be carried out using a Zeiss Nomarski and Leitz bright field –darkfield semiconductor microscopes a Leica GZ 6 stereo microscope we will soon be replacing SEM equipped with a wafer handling stage. A Wollam spectroscopic Elipsometer is available for film characterizations as well as a Dektak 3030 stylus profilimeter and a Wyko Nt 1100 white light optical profiler. A complete series of Electrical characterizations can be performed in the laboratory in particular 2 probe stations with long working distance objectives that can be hooked up to semiconductor parameter analyzers , RF and microwave characterization equipment (up to 18GHZ) as well as other equipment such as curve tracers and diode lasers. We have a pace hybrid rework station for small scale chip placement Additional equipment for wire bonding Uv processing and Film thickness characterization, Hot pressing lapping and diamond sawing and semiconductor dicing are available in laboratories within the same building.