Modular Cleanroom for Siegert TFT

Schilling Engineering has installed one of is modular cleanrooms for Siegert TFT, a leading specialist in Germany in the field of thinfilm technology. Siegert TFT’s products have applications in thinfilm structures for electronics, such as precision resistors, and sensors for measuring heat, pressure, force and acceleration.

To meet the high quality demands of its customers, Siegert TFT decided to invest in an additional Class 1000 cleanroom, close to its existing Class 100 cleanroom. Cleanroom specialist Schilling Engineering, based in Wütoschingen, was tasked with installing one of its ‘CleanCell’ facilities with climatic control.

In particular, the requirements for a modular building with large windows and innovative, highly efficient HVAC technology, and the use of Ultra High efficiency filters, were the main reasons why Siegert chose to use the southern German firm.

Developed by Schilling Engineering, the CleanCell cleanroom system is well suited to the needs of the thinfilm industry and enabled Siegert TFT to be up and ready for production in just four months. It has also provided product quality gains and lower maintenance costs.

The CleanCell system is a self-supporting, modular construction system with composite panel-wall fillings and extensive cleanroom windows. It has an innovative sealing system, H14 HEPA high performed-filter-fan-module, fully integrated and flush mounted cleanroom lighting, clean air-over-flowing grilles near the ground and integrated changing rooms.

The company also offers CleanCell systems for medical device and sterile optical product assembly.

RUSNANO Opens Nanotechnology Factory in Moscow

RUSNANO opens a new production site for its portfolio company RMT specializing in manufacture of thermoelectric cooling devices. These components are widely used for cooling lasers, photodetectors and integrated circuits (ICs). The smaller-scale cooling elements effectively dissipate heat generated by power-hungry devices used in modern telecommunications, high-performance computing and optoelectronics industries. The total budget of the project is around 800 million roubles of which RUSNANO finances 150 million roubles. Their co-investor is the closed-end high-risk (venture) investment fund "S-Group Ventures", established with capital raised from the Russian Venture Company.

IBM, ETH Zurich Nanotechnology Research Center Opens

The Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center opened at IBM Research - Zurich. with 600 guests from industry, academia, and governments. ETH Zurich, a European science and engineering university, and IBM have collaborated for 10 years on nanoscience. Now, the Center will allow scientists from IBM and the university to research novel nanoscale structures and devices to advance energy and information technologies. EMPA, a Swiss national research institution under the umbrella of the ETH domain, also is a partner in the new center.

The Center is named for Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, two IBM scientists and Nobel Laureates (1986) who invented the scanning tunneling microscope at the Zurich Research Lab in 1981, thus enabling researchers to see atoms on a surface for the first time. Their work on microscopy tools has allowed researchers to visualize the nanoscale. The two scientists attended the opening ceremony, at which the new lab was unveiled to the public. Binnig told Small Times in 2003 that he still recalls what it felt like in 1981 when he tested his technical innovations and saw atomic structures for the first time. "It was like a dream to discover all this," said Binnig, a fellow at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. "It was like being for the first time on the moon."

The Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center offers a cutting-edge, collaborative infrastructure designed specifically for advancing nanoscience. The noise-free labs open up a new level of precision, thereby potentially extending the scale on which scientists are able to measure and experiment even further.

A large cleanroom for micro and nanofabrication provides scientists from IBM and ETH Zurich with a flexible environment and tools for lithography, wet processing, dry etching, thermal processes, thin-film deposition or metrology and characterization. The cleanroom also features a special area for processing carbon-based materials and structures.

Six uniquely designed noise-free labs shield extremely sensitive experiments from external disturbances, such as vibrations, electro-magnetic fields, for example from nearby trains and cellphone towers, temperature fluctuations and acoustic noise.

The new Nanotechnology Center has been granted the use of the Minergie quality label, a Swiss standard for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Photovoltaics, geothermal probes, and heat recovery windows are part of this efficiency.

The building represents an investment of $60 million in infrastructure costs and an additional $30 million for tooling and equipment which, including the operating costs, are shared by the partners.*

Scientists and engineers from IBM and ETH Zurich will pursue joint and independent projects, ranging from exploratory research to applied and near-term projects including new nanoscale devices and device concepts as well as generating insights about their scientific foundations at the atomic level. Three ETH professors and their teams have moved into the new building and will conduct part of their research in nanoscience on a permanent base. Even more ETH researchers will benefit from the partnership and be able to use the excellent infrastructure for various projects.

One focus of IBM's research in the Center is put on exploring the "next switch", the future building blocks for better, faster and more energy efficient chips and computer systems. For example, IBM scientists are currently exploring semiconducting nanowires to potentially increase the energy efficiency of computing devices by 10 times. In addition, through novel device concepts, such nanowires-transistors could virtually consume zero energy while in passive or standby mode.

Additional research areas include micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), spintronics, organic electronics, carbon-based devices, functional materials, cooling, three-dimensional integration of computer chips, opto-electronics and optical data communication in computers as well as silicon nanophotonics.

Researchers will also explore new approaches for fabricating structures and devices with dimensions down to a few nanometers, such as scanning-probe nanolithography or directed self-assembly, addressing the upcoming challenges for manufacturing at the nanoscale.

In addition to these partnerships, IBM will also collaborate in the Center with scientists from several Lithuanian universities, under a five-year agreement that was signed in September 2010 with the Lithuanian Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Education and Science. This collaboration will focus on integrated photonics and novel photonic materials to create faster computers, improved solar technologies, and nanopatterning security tags for advanced anti-forgery technology.

Throughout 2011, IBM will host the IBM Research Colloquia, convening thought leaders at its global labs to discuss technologies of the future and their potential impact on business and society. The first of these colloquia took place today at IBM Research - Zurich, and featured a dialogue on Nanotechnology and the Future of Computing with IBM Fellows and Nobel Laureates, Drs. Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, and talks by Prof. Dr. Achim Bachem of the Julich Research Center on 21st Century Supercomputing; Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Meier, Kirchhoff Institute for Physics at Heidelberg University on Brain Inspired Computing and Prof. Dr. Daniel Loss of the University of Basel on Quantum Computing.

Learn more about the Center at http://www.zurich.ibm.com/nanocenter/factsheet.html

* The investment figure is based on an average conversion rate with Swiss Francs (CHF) between April 2008 - April 2011.

MTD Micro Molding Adding Capacity

Fast growing MTD Micro Molding is investing about $250,000 for basic construction of a 1,200-square-foot Class 8 cleanroom with capacity for eight molding cells.

The project in Charlton, Mass., uses internal space that previously held some of MTD’s older tooling equipment. A server-based material handling system will verify every incoming item via bar code scan or photo comparison, and a grinding room will control graphite dispersal.

“We are the general contractor and use local vendors,” said Dennis Tully, owner and president. “We have learned who is good with what and put them together.”

The current plan calls for completion in January, but “we could finish in November,” he noted. MTD is working with Sodick on a press delivery schedule.

On a four-acre footprint, the MTD facility occupies 16,000 square feet with the probability of an external addition in several years.

“In establishing our last cleanroom, we anticipated 3-5 years [to capacity], but it was full in six months,” Tully said.

Currently, MTD runs nine Sodick presses with clamping forces of 20 tons in three Class 8

cleanrooms.

In its R&D area, MTD is building competency with its first 20-ton Sodick liquid-silicone-rubber injection molding machine with plans for use in a lights-out operation.

“We are learning what we can do with it,” Tully said.

MTD, originally founded as Miniature Tool & Die in 1972, also has an older 7-ton Nissei that is used infrequently and is for sale.

MTD has 22 employees —”we just added another” — with 10 mold makers and computer-numerical-control specialists producing tools usually for internal use.

While not disclosing figures, Tully said MTD sales have grown at an average annual rate of 40 percent since July 2007. MTD’s fiscal year ends June 30.

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