ELECTRONICS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
UPDATE
January 2009
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Rogue Valley Microdevices Completes Foundry for MOS and MEMS
The National Institute for Nanotechnology Opens in Alberta, Canada
Bulgarian Scientist Work in Nanotechnology at University in Ruse
Colorado State Launches Construction of $53 Million Research Innovation Center
Donation for new Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology in Copenhagen, Denmark
STI Moves into New Upgraded Facility
Rogue Valley Microdevices announced the completion of their new Metal Foundry.
Rogue Valley Microdevices is now adding physical vapor depositions (PVD) to their product lineup. PVD Metal and Dielectric film deposition capabilities will allow Rogue Valley Microdevices to satisfy MOS and MEMS process requirements.
To accommodate the addition of an E-Beam Evaporator and a DC Magnetron Sputtering System an additional 1000 square feet of cleanroom space was added to their existing facility. Rogue Valley Microdevices also added a suite of metrology equipment essential for measuring the physical and electrical properties of the PVD films.
“I am very proud of the new processes we have introduced,” said CEO Jessica Gomez. “These new PVD films will help us to provide a more comprehensive thin films product portfolio for our customers.”
Rogue Valley Microdevices will now be able to offer a variety of sputtered films including Chromium, Aluminum, Copper, Titanium, Tantalum Nitride, Silicon Dioxide, and Silicon Nitride. The addition of an E-beam Evaporator is also exciting because it provides customers with much greater flexibility. Evaporated films now being added to the company’s growing list of services include Platinum, Gold, Chrome, Titanium and many others that can be deposited in a multitude of combinations. With these new capabilities, Rogue Valley Microdevices will continue to offer world class products and services to their customers.
Founded in 2003, Rogue Valley Microdevices (www.roguevalleymicro.com) is the first company to establish a microelectronics manufacturing facility in Southern Oregon. Headquartered in Medford Oregon, Rogue Valley Microdevices is dedicated to providing high quality manufacturing and engineering services for their customers at an affordable price.
Rogue Valley Microdevices has become a leader in delivering high quality thin film products and services to the Semiconductor, MEMS, and Solar community. Rogue Valley Microdevices maintains a facility that is capable of handling high volume manufacturing but flexible enough to process wafers from 25mm to 300mm in diameter.
Rogue Valley Microdevices specializes in high quality microelectronics manufacturing and thin film deposition. Their silicon wafer processing equipment is capable of volume manufacturing and can accommodate wafer sizes from 50mm to 200mm
A donation of approximately 3.75 million euro will enable a new centre for pharmaceutical nanotechnology and nanotoxicology to be established at the University of Copenhagen's (Denmark) Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The donation came from the Danish Council for Strategic Research and was awarded to Moein Moghimi, Professor of Biopharmacy and Nanomedicine in the Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry, and his colleagues. Moghimi will act as the Director of the centre.
Developing a wide spectrum of promising nanoscale materials, either in their own right or as a component of multifunctional platforms, is beginning to have a paradigm-shifting impact in medicine. These materials are changing the foundations of disease diagnosis, monitoring and treatment, and turning molecular discoveries into benefits for patients. Research into delivery and targeting of pharmaceutical, therapeutic and diagnostic agents via intravenous and interstitial routes of administration with particulate drug carriers and nanoconstructs is at the forefront of projects in nanomedicine, but the biological performance of such delivery systems still requires optimization.
The National Institute for Nanotechnology, funded by the governments of Canada and Alberta and by the University of Alberta, is the country's front-line command post in nano's new world order. It's a building seven stories tall, anchored deep in the earth behind a car park on the western edge of the university campus.
Completed two years ago at a cost of $52 million, this box-like construction of concrete, glass and steel is engineered to ruthlessly exterminate the slightest vibration that could wreak havoc on the mega-puny particles being scanned and sectioned in the glare of microscopes worth seven figures and the size of vending machines.
The building is cleaved internally by a ribbon of rubber on the ground floor, reducing the hum of elevators, heating and lighting equipment on one side from impacting the lab equipment on the other.
Heat does not blow into the lab; it gently bleeds through overhead tubes. The temperature remains constant to prevent expansion and contraction.
There are 200-plus staffers from more than 30 countries. In one lab, 37-year-old Michael Woodside is peering through an inverted microscope at the base of an organized mini-mountain of mirrors, prism circuits and electronic light sensors.
Beside him is a glass-topped steamer trunk encasing a warren of screwed-down lenses and optical devices that direct a laser beam that peels apart three-dimensional structures of biological molecules such as DNA and proteins.
When proteins fold properly, everything is fine. When they don't, diseases such as cystic fibrosis or Alzheimer's can result. "By understanding how they fold up we can hope to develop new treatments," says Woodside.
In terms of pure science, nanotechnology is the new frontier in significant shrinkage.
Contractors at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering were busy this week putting the final touches on a $150 million expansion project that includes a new 250,000-square-foot building and a 15,000-square-foot cleanroom.
The new building, called NanoFab East, includes offices, labs and classrooms. It will house the administrative offices of the NanoCollege, along with the new headquarters of Sematech, the computer chip consortium based in Austin, Texas.
NanoCollege officials say the building, which was privately financed, should be ready for occupancy by early this year.
Once the project is completed, the Albany NanoTech will total 800,000 square feet, including 80,000 square feet of cleanrooms specially designed to hold research and development equipment for 300-millimeter wafers. Total investment in the facility now is $4.5 billion, and 2,500 jobs will be on-site by mid-year.
Scientists from the university in the Danubean town of Ruse in cooperation with scientists from other Bulgarian towns as well as from Japan, Poland, and the United Kingdom, will begin work on a new project called “New materials and nanotechnologies”. So far, achievements of Bulgarian scientists were in the fields of electronics and covering materials. In next year’s project, scientists will research possibilities for stimulation of deformation processes in ultra-dispersive aluminum alloys whose grains vary from 0.1 to 1 microns. Nano-dispersive alloys whose grains are smaller than 0.1 microns and ultra-dispersive aluminum alloys are stronger and more elastic and are therefore suitable for the production of composite instruments.
Construction is now under way on the $53 million Research Innovation Center (RIC) on Colorado State University's (CSU) Foothill campus in Fort Collins.
Like its neighboring buildings—the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center, which is expected to open in March 2010, and the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building, which was dedicated last March—the building will be clad in limestone in Stanford’s mew Science & Engineering Quadrangle. .
The master plan for the site, located west of the Main Quadrangle, also includes a bioengineering and chemical engineering center.
Construction has already begun on the 99,000-square-foot Nanotechnology Center, which is expected to be completed in March 2010.
Prof. Moein Moghimi (Professor of Biopharmacy and Nanomedicine, Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical chemistry) and colleagues have received 28 million DKK (approximately 3.75 million Euros) from the Danish Council for Strategic Research (DSF) to set The Centre for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology (CPNN) at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences starting April 2009.
Prof. Moghimi will act as the Director of the Centre and Prof. Thomas Bjørnholm (Head of the NanoScience Centre) will be the Chairman of the Steering Committee.
The development of a wide spectrum of promising nanoscale materials, either in their own right or as a component of multifunctional platforms, is beginning to have a paradigm-shifting impact in medicine; they are changing the foundations of disease diagnosis, monitoring and treatment, and turning molecular discoveries into benefits for patients. Research into delivery and targeting of pharmaceutical, therapeutic, and diagnostic agents via intravenous and interstitial routes of administration with particulate drug carriers and nanoconstructs is at the forefront of projects in nanomedicine, but the biological performance of such delivery systems still requires optimization.
The principal investigator Prof. Moghimi said "the future of particulate and polymeric nanomedicines will depend on rational design of nanotechnology materials and tools based around a detailed and thorough molecular understanding of biological processes, rather than forcing applications for some materials currently in vogue". Therefore, the prime research focus of the Centre is to unravel the molecular basis of nanomaterial performance and toxicity through "structure-activity" assessments at membrane organelle, cellular and animal level in combination with and by improving/optimizing the performance of the state-of-the-art bio-nanotechnology techniques. This integrated and multidisciplinary approach is expected to improve therapeutic benefit-to-risk ratio.
CPNN also intend to provide "bench-mark protocols" for toxicity evaluation of nanomedicines in animals, and at cellular and molecular levels, as the sensitivity and precision of the standard toxicological procedures are of arguable value in nanomedicine research and development as it is limited to spotting extreme toxicity.
CPNN also receives substantial in-kind contribution (at present in the region of 10 million DKK) from pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. The Centre has a critical mass of academic and industrial expertise and necessary tools to conduct the task, thus reinforcing competitiveness at international level. Partners include NanoScience Centre at the University of Copenhagen (Prof. Bjørnholm and Associate Prof. D. Stamou), Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Copenhagen (Prof. S. Loft), DTU-Nanotech (Senior Scientist T. Andresen), Lundbeck A/S, LiPlasome A/S and Nordic Vaccine A/S. The international dimension of CPNN is further reflected through collaborations with centers of excellence world-wide including USA, Switzerland, EU as well as the growth countries China and Hungary.
Prof. Moghimi also said "our success would help the transformation of National and European biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries towards a knowledge-intensive, globally competitive one. In addition, the safe use of nanoparticulate delivery systems will also give Denmark and EU significant savings in pharmaceutical spending, which continue to grow".
Training of at least 9 PhD students and 5-6 post doctoral scientists are envisaged at the highest level gaining maximum benefit through close collaboration with industrial partners and international network as well as by the training offered through the Graduate Schools of Drug Discovery (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences) and Nanotechnology (Nano-Science Center).
STI Electronics Inc., a full service organization providing training, consulting, laboratory analysis, prototyping, and small- to medium-volume PCB assembly, announces that it has relocated to an upgraded facility.
STI moved into its newly constructed facility on December 19, 2008. Located at 261 Palmer Rd. in Madison, Ala., the new building is 54,000 sq. ft. as opposed to the 18,000 sq. ft. of its previous location.
STI is positioning itself for marked growth in 2009 and as a result has increased capabilities in all divisions. The Training Services Department is adding a third classroom and has plans to hire two additional instructors soon after the first of the year. Two of the classrooms will be set up to provide advanced hands-on training while the third will be a dedicated lecture classroom.
The Engineering Services Division has had a tremendous year and is in the process of setting up a complete new SMT manufacturing line. This will enable STI to more efficiently serve its customer base as well as add new and expanded capabilities. In the Analytical/Failure Analysis Lab, STI has added a RADWAG MXA-5 microbalance with a maximum capacity/readability of 5 g/1 µg, providing increased weighing capabilities. In addition, Microelectronics has almost doubled the size of its Class 1000 Cleanroom and now includes conformal coating capabilities.
STI has plans to implement additional equipment in the near future and continue to add capabilities and staff throughout 2009.
McIlvaine Company,
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;
E-mail: editor@mcilvainecompany.com;
Web site: www.mcilvainecompany.com