OTHER ELECTRONICS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
UPDATE
November 2008
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Trace Laboratories Opens China Facility
IMEC and Panasonic Sign Comprehensive Joint Research Contract
UConn Cleanroom for Nanobionics
Nanotechnology Cleanroom Opens at IMS
Georgia Tech Awarded New Center to Study Potential Silicon Successor
U of California Gets Nano Center
Binghamton University Begins Construction of New Science and Engineering Center
Trace Laboratories, Inc., a global leader in independent testing, analysis, and qualification services, announces the opening of a new test laboratory in China. The laboratory, located in Shanghai, will primarily support product verification and materials testing for our current and future customer base with sister divisions and/or suppliers in the Far East. They will also provide complete testing solutions for OEMs and their suppliers. The newest Trace lab will support Material Analysis, Dimensional Measurements, Functionality, Design Validation and Process Validation Testing (DV/PV.)
"Trace Laboratories, Inc. is prepared to support the global marketplace for material and product certifications," says Mitch Sas, Director of Laboratory Operations. "The opening of this facility is an important step in assisting our customers with their product validation in a timely fashion."
Timely product certification and materials analysis is a crucial component in minimizing a product's time to market. A product shipping with dimensional, hazardous or restricted materials, or a failure to operate properly can be very costly.
Trace Laboratories, Inc. conducts Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) monitoring of suppliers. This will eliminate the need for Trace's customers to make repeated international trips to conduct quality control audits in distant regions. Trace Laboratories can perform product verification to customer or global industrial specifications, at the same time ensuring compliance with the varied standards of most countries.
The nanoelectronics research center IMEC and Panasonic Corporation have signed a joint research contract concerning the most advanced technologies in the semiconductor, networks, wireless, and biomedical fields. Research will be carried out at the Leuven (Belgium) facilities and IMEC's research unit at Holst Centre in Eindhoven (the Netherlands).
Since 2004, Panasonic has been participating in IMEC's joint research platform on the most advanced semiconductor process technologies as a core partner to accelerate its open innovation in this field. The world's first mass production of the system-on-chip with 65nm and 45nm processes such as Panasonic's "UniPhier(R)" uses the results of the joint research with IMEC. Now, a comprehensive joint research program covering most of the research domains of IMEC will start by expanding the collaboration scope from advanced semiconductor process technology to include application areas of semiconductors.
For this purpose, the Panasonic IMEC Center will be established at the IMEC premises in December 2008. It will conduct R&D on network technology such as dynamically reconfigurable software-defined radio, ultra-low power consumption wireless communication technology for healthcare and lifestyle monitoring and biomedical technology such as next generation biosensors.
Panasonic is enhancing its R&D in networks, healthcare devices and semiconductor technologies in order to realize an environmentally-friendly ubiquitous networked society. Panasonic will make further acceleration of R&D on cutting-edge technologies by expanding the scheme of joint research with IMEC, the world outstanding nanoelectronics research center as well as the world-leading research center in applications of semiconductor technology.
IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. IMEC vzw is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, has a sister company in the Netherlands, IMEC-NL, offices in the US, China and Taiwan, and representatives in Japan. Its staff of more than 1600 people includes more than 500 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2007, its revenue (P&L) was €244.5 million.
A midsummer 2009 construction start is expected for two Washington State University Vancouver buildings that would house academic programs and labs to help regional technology firms flourish.
The combined $59.4 million in projects will add more than 71,600 square feet of classroom and lab space to WSUV’s Salmon Creek campus by 2011. WSU is developing a $42.6 million, four-story Applied Technology Classroom building, planned for the north end of campus. An adjoining two-story facility, the $16.8 million Semiconductor Component Testing Laboratory, will be developed by the Washington Technology Center, a statewide economic development organization.
The building will provide classroom, research and faculty space for expanded electrical engineering and computer science courses at Vancouver’s WSU campus, programs that in turn, will feed the work force of local tech firms.
The agency plans to leverage federal and private funding to purchase equipment worth between $2 million and $4 million for the laboratory. Cheatham said it would be a one-of-a-kind facility focused on the development of semiconductors, the brains of all high-tech electronic devices, from personal computers to cell phones.
The University of Connecticut has put the finishing touches on a $2 million Nanobionics Fabrication Facility, which will allow scientists to develop devices for uses in defense, industry and medicine.
The 1,000-square-foot cleanroom is the third on the UConn campus. It is part of UConn’s $7 million investment in support of nanotechnology research facilities.
More than 40 state companies use UConn staff and facilities for research and developmental efforts in nanotechnology.
The University dramatically expanded its nanotechnology research capabilities this month, with the opening of a 1,000-square-foot cleanroom that will allow scientists to fabricate cutting-edge devices for use in defense, industry, and medicine.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, President Michael J. Hogan, and a host of other elected officials and University representatives acknowledged the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Oct. 20 at the Institute of Materials Science (IMS) in the Edward V. Gant Science Complex.
The Nanobionics Fabrication Facility supplements state-of-the-art research technology worth more than $20 million that is currently available at the IMS, including high-power electron microscopes, atomic force microscopes, and advanced spectrometers.
Hogan called the $2 million facility a "significant milestone" in UConn's continuing program to build new interdisciplinary scientific initiatives."This new nanobionics clean room is one part of UConn's comprehensive nanotechnology infrastructure that we think is second to none in Connecticut," Hogan said.
The University has invested more than $7 million of its own funds in support of nanotechnology research facilities and faculty as part of its revised academic plan. Nearly 80 faculty members from UConn's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Schools of Engineering, Medicine, Dental Medicine, Pharmacy, and Agriculture are now actively engaged in nanotechnology research. Together they have received more than $25 million in research grants over the past three years.
The cleanroom offers both wet and dry processing capabilities. Researchers working inside the room must wear white Gore-Tex suits and special shoe covers and gloves to protect the sterile environment, which allows for no more than 1,000 microdust particles per cubic meter of air.
The cleanroom is expected to advance UConn research into such things as a nanosized implantable glucose sensor for diabetics. It will also help Robert Birge, holder of the Harold S. Schwenk Sr. Distinguished Chair in Chemistry, in his quest to develop an artificial retina.
Nejat Olgac, the head of UConn's Advanced Laboratory for Automation, will use the room to help with the ongoing development of a nanoscopic device that can transfer genetic material into cells with greater accuracy and effectiveness - a potential boon for nanomedicine.
In addition, nanotechnology is expected to have a major impact on next-generation energy concepts, such as state-of-the-art solar and fuel cells.
The nanobionics fabrication facility was made possible in part through a U.S. Army Center grant, in conjunction with pooled resources and equipment from the University's nanobionics-associated faculty and IMS.
In addition, UConn 2000 funding supported the necessary infrastructure improvements to make the cleanroom, said Professor Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, director of the Nanobionics Fabrication Facility and associate director of IMS.
UConn is the only place in the state that high-technology businesses can come to access equipment that can characterize, synthesize, manipulate, or assemble matter on the nanoscale level. Each year, more than 40 Connecticut companies use UConn's expertise in nanotechnology and materials science for their research and development efforts.
The Laboratory will focus its efforts on the development of new materials to serve as the successors to silicon in the semiconductor industry. Specifically, the development of graphene - which holds tremendous promise as an electronic material - will be the initial core of research and development at the Center.
NSF funding will be $8.1 million for six years of research and development. The MRSEC office suite will be housed in the Georgia Tech's new Marcus Nanotechnology Research Center Building.
"This is an exciting time for graphene research," said Dennis Hess, director of the Georgia Tech MRSEC. "Our studies may allow the manufacture of microelectronic devices and integrated circuits based on graphene. The Georgia Tech team, in conjunction with external partners, has already pioneered the use of epitaxial graphene to achieve such goals. Georgia Tech Physics.
The Laboratory will be a cross-disciplinary effort utilizing the talent and resources of Georgia Tech and four additional institutions: University of California Berkeley, University of California Riverside, Alabama A & M and the University of Michigan. Georgia Tech will initially have 13 faculty members involved in the Laboratory's efforts, with five additional members representing the partner schools. Collaborations are already in place with several companies and national laboratories within the U.S. and abroad.
Graphene, a sheet of carbon only one-atom thick, holds the potential to become the core material for computer processors in electronics, which continue to become smaller in size. Silicon, comparatively, has fundamental limitations that inhibit operation in ever-shrinking devices used in microelectronics, optics and sensors.
Georgia Tech will develop the fundamental science and technology to maximize graphene's potential as a component in future electronics technologies. In addition, the Center will provide the core curriculum, train a diverse workforce and develop the future academic and industrial leaders needed for this new direction in the semiconductor industry.
The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara (CNS-UCSB) helped to win the new University of California Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN), a five-year, $24 million center co-funded by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency to study the environmental impacts of nanotechnology. The new center, headquartered at UCLA but involving significant collaboration from UC Santa Barbara researchers, will include a research group on environmental risk perception led by Dr. Barbara Herr Harthorn, Director of the CNS-UCSB and Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, Anthropology & Sociology. CNS-UCSB also will collaborate in the UC CEIN's novel science journalist program, led by Professor William Freudenburg, a professor in UCSB's Environmental Studies Program and a member of Harthorn's team. UC CEIN also includes other researchers in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, Environmental Studies, Chemistry, and Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology.
The centers, led by UCLA and Duke University, will study how nanomaterials interact with the environment and with living systems, and will translate this knowledge into risk assessment and mitigation strategies useful in the development of nanotechnology.
"The new centers will provide national and international leadership in the emerging field of environmental nanoscience," said Arden L. Bement, Jr., NSF director. "This is an important addition to the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and builds on earlier discoveries on the environmental implications of nanotechnology made since 2001, when NSF's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology was established. The new centers are aimed at strengthening our nation's commitment to research on the environmental, health and safety implications of nanomaterials."
The centers will work as a network, connected to other research organizations, industry and government agencies and will emphasize interdisciplinary research and education. Their challenge is to better integrate materials science and engineering with molecular, cellular, organismal and ecological biology and environmental science.
Nanoparticles are as much as a million times smaller than the head of a pin, and have unusual properties compared with larger objects made from the same material. These unusual properties make nanomaterials attractive for use in everything from computer hard-drives to sunscreens, cosmetics and medical technologies.
With the rapid development of nanotechnology and its applications, a wide variety of nanomaterials are now used in clothing, electronic devices, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other biomedical products.
The potential interactions of nanomaterials with living systems and the environment have attracted increasing attention from the public as well as manufacturers of nanomaterial based products, academic researchers, and policy makers. Nanotechnology is expected to become a $1 trillion industry within the next decade.
However, the environmental implications of these materials are only beginning to be understood.
The UCLA CEIN, to be housed at the California NanoSystems Institute on the UCLA campus, will explore the impact of nanomaterials on the environment and on interactions with biological systems at all scales from cellular to ecosystem.
At the Duke University CEIN, researchers plan to define the relationship between a vast array of nanomaterials--from natural to man-made to incidental, byproduct nanoparticles--and their potential environmental exposure, biological effects and ecological consequences. Nanomaterials that are already in commercial use as well as several present in nature will be among the first materials studied.
A major effort for the research team over the coming year is to develop 32 tightly instrumented ecosystems in the Duke Forest in Durham, N.C. Known as mesocosms, these living laboratories provide areas where researchers can add nanoparticles and study the resulting interactions and effects on plants, fish, bacteria and other elements.
"This mesocosm facility will be the nano-environment equivalent of the space station--a unique resource with tremendous potential that will be tapped by researchers throughout the center and beyond," said Wiesner. "This research will address the influence of nanomaterials on processes ranging from the subcellular to whole ecosystems."
While UCLA serves as the lead campus for the UC CEIN, researchers from a range of other institutions and organizations are involved in UCLA CEIN research, including UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), UC Davis (UCD), UC Riverside (UCR), Columbia University (New York),University of Texas (El Paso, TX), Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore), the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratory SNL), the University of Bremen (Germany), University College Dublin (UCD, Ireland) and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV, Spain).
Duke CEIN deputy director Gregory Lowry from Carnegie Mellon University and co-principal investigator Kimberly Jones from Howard University specialize in nanoparticle movement and transformations in the environment. Mike Hochella, a nanogeochemist from Virginia Tech, and Rich Di Giulio, an ecotoxicologist from Duke are also co-principal investigators. Rounding out the team are collaborators Gordon Brown, a geochemist from Stanford University and Paul Bertsch, a soil scientist from the University of Kentucky.
Additional investigators affiliated with the Duke center include those at Clemson, and North Carolina State Universities, as well as scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Army Corps of Engineers and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. International institutions collaborating with the Duke center include the European Center for Research and Education in Geosciences and the Environment; Sciences Po; Buenos Aires Institute of Technology; Nankai University; Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research; Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology; and the Institute of Occupational Medicine, United Kingdom.
Binghamton University marks the construction of the new engineering and science building with a ceremony that launched construction of the $66 million building at the University’s Innovative Technologies Complex.
Libous, R-Binghamton, and Lupardo, D-Endwell, secured funding for the building, which will provide $112 million in economic impact and support more than 1,500 jobs during construction. The glass, metal and stone building will accommodate the expansion of the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science and will feature administrative, academic and research space and suites for new business start-ups.
The new building will house the Watson dean’s office, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center (IEEC). A large rotunda will connect the two ITC buildings, offering access to laboratories and fostering closer interactions between departments and the research centers currently housed in the biotechnology facility.
The building also has been designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, incorporating passive solar energy for heating, geothermal technology for heating and cooling the rotunda, energy-efficient windows and skylights to allow for maximum use of daylight and the latest technology for heat recovery and humidity control.
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