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Tyndall National Institute

Tyndall Central Fabrication

Facility (CFF)

IRDG March 2013

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Outline

Tyndall Central Fabrication Facility Flexible collaboration with industry

SensL APDs RADFETs Sicel/GAESi Xenics Silicon photodiode arrays for earth observation QinetiQ/DERA IR Bolometers

Summary

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Facilities

Silicon MOS Fabrication MEMS Fabrication Compound Semiconductor

Fabrication Training Facility E-Beam Lithography CFF Centre is made up of a team of

management, engineering and technical professionals

Tyndall operates a Quality Management System that is ISO9001 accredited

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Full CMOS/SOI process capability

PiN Diode, RADFET and APD processes

Research on “Ultimate” silicon devices

Facility used in a “mix and match” mode with the E-beam facility to produce devices in nm range (30-50nm)

Mixed technology processes

Device Prototyping and Process Development for commercial customers

Small-volume production for commercial customers

MOS Fabrication Cleanroom

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MEMS Fabrication

Role within Tyndall is to support the design & fabrication of MST/MEM/MOEM devices and components

Fabrication of structures using silicon, glasses and polymers

Two way wafer exchange between the silicon facility and MEMS

MEMS activity is located in the new fabrication cleanroom in a shared facility with III-V

Full equipment suite with wet and dry etch double sided alignment and wafer bonding

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Full process capability for compound semiconductor devices III-V (GaAs, AlGaAs, InP etc) GaN

Optoelectronics Light-Emitting Diodes, RCLED’s Laser Diodes, VCSEL’s

Sub-Millimeter Wave Technology Schottky Diodes MMIC’s Membrane Structures

Nanotechnology Fabrication of structures for

electrical characterization of nano-devices

Compound Semiconductor Fabrication

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Training Fabrication

Fully equipped training fabrication facility

Setup for compound semiconductor fabrication

Will be used for training courses and introduction to processing

Students can then graduate to full facility usage

Full capability as a research laboratory

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Flexifab

Capability/Concept rather than a separate space

Allow for the introduction of new materials and process concepts in a controlled environment

Significant amount of new equipment purchased under the PRTLI5 programme (€3.8M) (Project:Tyffani)

Fits with the work in the Advanced Materials group, Nanotechnology and the Photonics Devices groups

Some equipment installed all ordered or identified

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JEOL JBX 6000FS Resolution down to 20nm Min Spot-Size 5nm

ZEP520A positive resist Min feature size 20nm for

100nm layer Min feature size 150nm for

650nm layer

150mm wafer capability Mix-and-Match process

capability with the other labs

E-Beam Lithography

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Other Laboratories Within Tyndall

Ferroelectric/Ferromagnetic growth facility (Atomic Vapour Deposition)

EMAF Microscopy Laboratory High resolution SEM Dual Beam FIB TEM

Electronic test facilities Photonics and electronics packaging capabilities Mechanical workshop Nanotechnology Characterization laboratories

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CASE STUDIES

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SensL

SensL was a spin-out from Tyndall in 2004 An APD process which had been the subject of several

PhD projects was licensed by Tyndall to SensL To become a fully commercial process significant

development had to be carried out Tyndall fabrication staff operated in a close

collaboration with SensL process engineers to develop a process capable of supporting multiple commercial products

From 2004 to 2010 all SensL development and production silicon was fabricated at Tyndall

In 2010 the process was successfully transferred to a commercial foundry

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SensL Technology

SensL are active in the following application areas Medical imaging Homeland security Analytical Instruments

SensL products include Silicon Photomultipliers

• A direct replacement for Linear Photomultiplier Tubes

Photon Counting Systems• High performance photon counting

devices

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Low Light Devices - SensL

Post-graduate research project Spin-out Company

Technology license Process transfer for high volume

production Time scale

Sensl founded 2004 Technology transferred 2010

Project team Silcion process engineers Two engineers from Sensl

Costs Two cost models

• One for production wafers• One for development wafers

IP Original process licensed to SensL All developments paid for and owned

by SensL

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Medical devices based on RADFETs

Sicel’s OneDose system: dosimeter patch with RAD1 and the reader

Sicel’s DVS: implantable capsule and paddle reader

INVORAD catheter array

OneDose Product DVS Product Catheter Development

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Radiation Detection

In the mid-1980s Tyndall (then NMRC) entered an agreement with ESA (ESTEC) to be come the Microelectronics Technology Support Laboratory (MTSL)

As part of that agreement, a simple radiation detector was developed for in-craft housekeeping

This detector monitored the amount of radiation being detected by on-board electronics

The device is very simple MOS device with special processing to make it radiation “soft”

Continued development of this device brought the sensitivity and range into an area suitable for medical applications

Tyndall has also provided RADFETs for personnel monitors in high radiation environments

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Tyndall RADFETs

Tyndall entered an agreement with a US company called Sicel, in 2004, to supply RADFETs for radiation detection in cancer radiotherapy

Sicel have 2 products, both FDA approved OneDose - an external single use

detector DVS – an implanted (in the body)

device that remains active over an entire course of radiotherapy. The device reports the dose from a single irradiation and holds the information on accumulated dose.

Tyndall has the fabrication capacity to meet all future needs

ESAPMOS4 quadruple chip (1mm x 1mm)

RAD1 RADFET chip (0.5mm x 0.5mm)

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Fabrication of Linear Diode Arrays for Xenics

Xenics Infrared Solutions is involved in a space programme for satellite imaging

Their role is to provide a system that will consist of 4 linear sensor arrays of 512 pixels on 25um pitch and pixel height

Each of the 4 sensors will respond to a different wavelength range Visible (VIS) Near IR (NIR) Shortwave IR1 (SWIR1) Shortwave IR2 (SWIR2)

Xenics are fabricating the SWIR detectors in their proprietary InGaAs process

Tyndall fabricated the VIS and NIR sensors in Silicon

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Results

Device LayoutOptical Response single diode

Optical Response 5 adjacent diodes

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Project History

The project history is interesting Tyndall was approached by Xenics and bid for the project in

2008 The bid was unsuccessful and awarded to a commercial foundry In May of 2010 Xenics came back and asked to discuss simply

processing silicon arrays on a batch basis It turned that after 2 years of development the project still had

not got working silicon Tyndall was audited by the Prime Contractor, TNO, on

27/05/2010 Purchase Order 10/06/2010 Silicon deliveries completed 13/09/2010 One delivery of silicon (3 wafers of each) for each of the

wavelengths VIS/NIR met all of Xenics silicon requirements for the project

This included a mask change at Xenics’ request after the first delivery of silicon

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Process Development - Xenics

Contract research Process development

Product delivery Time scales

15 weeks – initial discussions to final delivery

Team Tyndall silicon fabrication Micro/Nano research engineer Xenics process engineer

Costs Circa €25,000

IP Process IP remains with Tyndall Device design IP with Xenics

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Microneedle Technology

Microneedles first developed under an EU Framework 5 project

Applications such as painless injections and endoporation for cancer treatment

Has since found applications in the area of vaccination, emission sources

Working with other university departments and a number of commercial organisations on further development and commercialization

These devices have been used in two large projects with Industry in the last 2 years

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Industry Engineers in Fabrication

Researchers in residence at Tyndall well documented Also have fabrication engineers in “residence” This facilitated the conversion of a

research/development process to a full production process with all of the documentation and characterization that goes with that

Means that Tyndall not only can offer up through the 9 levels of TRL (mainly level 7) but also up to level level 9 of MRL

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Summary

Tyndall has a range of flexible fabrication facilities to meet a wide cross-section of needs

There are a number of collaborative models that are used for interaction with industry These range from straight contract research to collaborative

arrangements with industry engineers embedded at Tyndall

Companies working with Tyndall get the benefit of all of the background technology available

IP is not an issue as Tyndall has a team experienced in drawing up mutually agreeable terms and conditions

As well as the fabrication facilities there is a wide range of research and characterization laboratories Access to all labs is seamless to the customer