Isonics Advances Si-28 &nwith Silex and AMD

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 6/1/1999

Isonics Corp. (Golden, Colo.) signed a joint research and development agreement with Silex Systems Limited (North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia) to collaborate on new technologies for developing isotopically pure silicon for the semiconductor industry. Isonics is to provide data from its silicon-28 wafer development program to Silex to assess the feasibility of building an isotope separation facility for silicon-28 using Silex's laser separation technology.

Silex has agreed to contribute $200,000 over the next 12 to 18 months to Isonics' planned development program, which will make bulk silicon-28 samples for evaluation by semiconductor device manufacturers. Isonics recently delivered silicon-28 epitaxial wafers to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif.) for performance testing and yield evaluation.

Isotopically pure silicon-28 has been shown to have a thermal conductivity 50% higher than that of natural silicon. Isonics believes that silicon-28 will enable higher density integrated circuits with increased performance and improved chip yields. Isonics recently entered a licensing agreement with Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) that entitles the company to exclusive intellectual property rights to patents covering semiconductor devices made with isotopically engineered materials.