College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Peter Singer, Editor-in-Chief -- Semiconductor International, 3/1/2007

Editor's Note: Welcome to our new section focused on advanced semiconductor and nanotechnology research underway at various institutions, research labs and consortia around the world. We'll focus not only on specific research programs, but how research is evolving through joint development efforts and increasingly innovative collaboration. Our Movers & Shakers executive interviews , which previously occupied this space, has moved to our website, where you'll be able to enjoy them in audio and video formats.

The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany-State University of New York (SUNY, Albany, N.Y.) is perhaps best known as the home of the first “nano mall,” otherwise known as CNSE's Albany NanoTech (ANT) complex. Its current net asset base of more than $3B is located within 450,000 ft² of state-of-the-art infrastructure, including 70,000 ft² of Class 1 capable 300 mm wafer cleanrooms. The UAlbany NanoCollege is also home to over 1500 scientists, researchers, engineers and technicians from many leading nanoelectronics companies, such as IBM, AMD, Qimonda, Micron, Sony, Toshiba, Sematech, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, ASML, Vistec Lithography, Ebara and Honeywell, among many others. For reasons you'll soon see, the CNSE complex is projected to expand to over 750,000 ft², including 85,000 ft² of Class 1 capable 300 mm wafer cleanrooms, and will house over 2000 scientists, researchers, engineers and technicians by the end of 2008. In addition, CNSE works with nearly 250 corporate partners from around the world.

Alain Kaloyeros, vice president and chief administrative officer of CNSE, said CNSE's research program is designed to cover everything from spintronics to molecular and optical devices in the long term, as well as short term, as they are working with companies on tech transfer and related research programs. “The college has become the umbrella organization that manages a number of research centers, research consortia and strategic partnerships that cover that entire spectrum,” he said.

1. A researcher from International Sematech North works inside a 300 mm cleanroom at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering’s (CNSE) Albany NanoTech complex.

One of the most important research centers at CNSE is the Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Exploration (INDEX), the result of a joint effort by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA, San Jose) and the Semiconductor Research Corp . (SRC, Durham, N.C.) to create the “Bell Labs for the 21st Century.” The mission of the $435M INDEX program, launched in January of 2006, is to design and demonstrate new computer chip transistor paradigms and focus on the development of nanomaterials, fabrication technologies, nanochip designs and architectural integration schemes. “We view INDEX as an essential component of our long-term research portfolio, because it's serving as the catalyst for all these new concepts that are driving a lot of the innovation and, concurrently, providing the vehicle for what the fab of the latter half of the 21st century is going to look like,” Kaloyeros said. “A lot of the theoretical and experimental studies show CMOS is going to run out of steam as early as 2012.”

CNSE is leading a consortium of university researchers from Harvard University, Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Purdue University, Georgia Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), with on-site corporate researchers from leading semiconductor companies such as Intel, Micron, AMD, IBM, Texas Instruments and Freescale Semiconductor. They'll be housed in a new 250,000 ft² facility at Albany, which will include a 15,000 ft² cleanroom wing. A specified $160M of the funding will be used for operating expenses (part of the expected expansion mentioned earlier).

2. More than 250 global high-tech companies, including leaders in the nanoelectronics industry, have R&D partnerships and programs at the UAlbany NanoCollege.

INDEX is one of three primary centers in the United States established by the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI), the other two being Western Institute of Nanotechnology (WIN) and South West Academy of Nanoelectronics (SWAN). WIN is headquartered at UCLA, with University of California at Berkeley, UCSB and Stanford as partners. SWAN is headquartered at the Microelectronics Research Center at the University of Texas-Austin , and includes a collective team from UT-Dallas, Texas A&M, Rice, Notre Dame, Arizona State and the University of Maryland.

Complementary to the INDEX center at Albany is the Center for Advanced Interconnect Science and Technology (CAIST), also supported by the SRC. The CAIST's 18 university participants include — in addition to UAlbany CNSE — Binghamton University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Purdue University, RPI, SUNY Stony Brook, University of Arizona, University of California at Berkeley, University of Central Florida, University of Maryland, University of Rochester, and the University of Texas-Austin. Kaloyeros said it complements INDEX because the mission of CAIST is to cover mid-term research. “The main focus of CAIST is on looking at electrical wiring alternatives that would continue the current CMOS architecture.”

3. The CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex.

CNSE is also a member of the National Interconnect Focus Center (IFC), established by the SIA and the Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency in 1998. The center, lead by Georgia Tech, includes MIT and Stanford. Current IFC research initiatives include:

• Moletronic-based interconnect nanotechnology
• Nano/microsystem-based optoelectronics
• Advanced atomic-scale metrology development
• Dynamic optical interconnects

“Those three centers [INDEX, CAIST and IFC] cover the entire spectrum of the research needed from device to interconnect to address continuing the CMOS evolution and concurrently looking at potentially revolutionary concepts for new chips,” Kaloyeros said.

Another highlight of the advanced research underway at CNSE is the Center for Semiconductor Research (CSR), which is a long-term, multiphase joint R&D cooperative program on future computer chip technology nodes, beginning with the 32 nm computer chip device node. Industry partners within the CSR include IBM, AMD, Sony, Toshiba, Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials. Kaloyeros said that the CSR is unique in the academic world in two respects: It is the only center within a university setting that provides full vertical integration of the design, modeling, fabrication, testing and pilot-prototyping capabilities required to produce the nanochips of the future, beginning with a blanket silicon wafer and ending with workable nanochip demonstration vehicles; and it represents the first time in history that a university “has been placed in the critical path of technology development and deployment” of a high-tech corporation.

4. A graduate student works in the spintronics lab at the University at Albany’s CNSE.

In September of 2006, the 65 nm semiconductor fabrication line in the CSR was qualified, making CNSE the first university to qualify a line of tools that matches the current state-of-the-art in the semiconductor industry. “The intent is, over the next couple of years, to quickly move on to focus on the 22 nm node,” Kaloyeros said. “What we tried to do strategically is a combination of truly research-based centers within the college and the mirror image of them, which is the R&D consortia that are customized to the needs of our specific partners, which gives them the ability to do their own work in a private room within the facility and concurrently participate in joint activities within the CSR.” Research centers with the “nano mall” include the $300M Tokyo Electron Ltd. Technology Center America, ASML's $400M R&D center and Applied Materials' $300M research center.

The ability to move to smaller dimensions is, of course, a function of lithographic capability, and there's a strong focus on that at CNSE. “We're looking at the entire spectrum of lithography applications, from optical to e-beam to even the bottom-up approaches, including self-assembly for the new device architectures,” Kaloyeros said.

“Our emphasis on litho is really critical,” noted James Ryan, associate vice president of technology CNSE. “We have the best infrastructure in the world in terms of our ability to do immersion: the world's first EUV alpha demo system [from ASML] and now the leading-edge Gaussian e-beam system from Vistec.” Ryan said the CSR line is qualified at 65 nm but: “Actually, there's a lot of research going on at considerably smaller nodes, at 45 and 32 nm.”

A key part of the lithography research at CNSE includes the work going on at International Sematech North, which is primarily focused on next-generation extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask and resist development, as well as two other CNSE-led initiatives: the International Venture for Nanolithography (INVENT) and the International Multiphase Partnership for Lithography Science and Engineering (IMPLSE). INVENT is primarily focused on process development, whereas IMPLSE is focused on tool development. INVENT is described as a global $600M industry/university consortium for R&D, education and technology deployment for future nanolithography applications. Companies involved include AMD, ASML, Qimonda, IBM, Micron, Corning, Honeywell and others. The IMPLSE program is a joint effort between CNSE, ASML and IBM, centered on ASML's $65M EUV demo tool installed at Albany last August.

5. Richard Moore works with a graduate student at the University at Albany’s CNSE, the first college dedicated to nanotechnology.

“Those two programs represent opposite sides of the coin, but they work very nicely in bringing infrastructure together and maximizing the focus on immersion lithography and EUV lithography,” Ryan said. “Having that full gamut of lithography programs is very helpful and serves to attract the many different entities who see we've made the investment; we have a high-quality infrastructure, and they want to come and work with us on that.”

CNSE also participates in the Center for Advanced Technology in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics (CATN), which is described as a strategic partnership between premier research universities and the nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, telecommunications, defense and nanobiotechnology industry clusters in New York state. CATN's mission is to provide the industry with “critical research and development, business assistance, workforce training, and economic outreach within a technically aggressive and financially competitive environment.” In addition to the University at Albany-SUNY, the center includes Alfred University, Binghamton University-SUNY, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

In addition to this plethora of innovative research programs — and perhaps just as importantly — CNSE is providing critical education, training and workforce development for the next generation of scientists, engineers and technicians through its pioneering educational curriculum, which awards graduate degrees in both nanoscale science and engineering. The first college dedicated to the study of nanoscience, nanoengineering, nanobioscience and nanoeconomics, CNSE is well-positioned to help address the national need for more than two million nanotechnology-savvy workers by 2014, as identified by the National Science Foundation .