OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
August 2020
McIlvaine Company
Upgraded Cleanroom Facilities at UCLA Advanced
Nanofabrication Capabilities
Pennington Engineering Building Opens at UNR
Hamamatsu Photonics Completes New Factory
NanoImaging Services Opens West Coast Facility
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Upgraded Cleanroom Facilities at UCLA Advanced
Nanofabrication Capabilities
Engineering school and California NanoSystems Institute to create integrated,
state-of-the-art spaces
UCLA’s high-tech capabilities for creating atomically tiny devices and materials
are undergoing a multimillion-dollar upgrade.
The enhancements include adding state-of-the-art fabrication equipment to its
existing cleanrooms — specialized laboratories where the air is free from dust
and other particles. The changes will allow researchers to build new generations
of small devices, such as computer chips that mimic how the brain works,
ultra-high-efficiency batteries and solar panels, and even biological sensors
for rapid and portable diagnosis.
As part of the upgrade, two existing cleanrooms will merge under a single
operation — called the UCLA Nanofabrication Laboratory, or UCLA NanoLab for
short. The new entity combines resources from the UCLA Samueli School of
Engineering’s Nanoelectronics Research Facility and the California NanoSystems
Institute at UCLA’s Integrated Systems Nanofabrication Cleanroom. The upgrades,
which began this year, should be complete in 2022.
The UCLA NanoLab is available to the campus community, as well as to researchers
from other institutions and high-tech companies. Hundreds of businesses have
already used UCLA’s cleanrooms. The facility has remained active during the
COVID-19 pandemic, although applications to use it are subject to campus
guidance designed to limit the spread of the disease.
The upgrades are being made possible by a combined multimillion-dollar
investment from UCLA Engineering, CNSI and the office of UCLA’s vice chancellor
of research.
“This joint investment is an important demonstration of a strategic partnership
with an impact that will extend across campus and beyond,” said Adam Stieg, an
associate director of CNSI responsible for the institute’s technology centers.
“Providing this type of advanced research infrastructure will accelerate the
translation of early-stage scientific discoveries into new technologies and
knowledge-driven enterprises.”
Cleanrooms help prevent contamination of the tiny experimental devices
researchers are studying or building. On a day with “good” outdoor air quality,
there can be millions of particles of dust, pollen and microbes in each cubic
foot of air. By contrast, the cleanest area of the UCLA NanoLab will have less
than 10 particles per cubic foot.
The UCLA NanoLab will offer state-of-the-art resources for the fabrication of
devices at the nanoscale — items so small that they are measured in
one-billionths of a meter. Additionally, UCLA is the only institution in
Southern California that enables researchers to work with biological materials —
such as what is needed to build next-generation biosensors — within a fully
functional nanofabrication facility.
Some of the upgrades will build on UCLA’s established excellence in
semiconductor lithography, the drawing of patterns onto the silicon wafers that
form the foundation of integrated circuits. New equipment will enhance the
campus’s capabilities for subsequent steps in the process — depositing
functional materials onto the patterns, etching away unneeded parts of the
wafers and analyzing the characteristics of the resulting devices.
This added equipment will enable researchers to work with emerging materials
that combine metal with oxygen or nitrogen, with potential applications
including greener electrical power and brain-mimicking computer chips.
“We’re creating more possibilities for users,” said You-Sheng “Wilson” Lin, who
oversees day-to-day operations as director of the UCLA NanoLab. “With the new
tools, UCLA investigators can be even more creative about conceiving their
research programs.”
The NanoLab location in CNSI will house a full suite of equipment to support
most common nanofabrication processes. The location at UCLA Samueli, which is in
the nearby Engineering IV building, will host equipment for specialized
processes such as advanced etching and continue to be used as a teaching
laboratory for UCLA students in engineering and the sciences.
Beyond campus researchers, one company that has used UCLA’s cleanrooms is
Carbonics Inc., which makes energy-efficient wireless chips integrating carbon
nanotubes, hollow cylinders of graphene that help lower power consumption and
improve performance. The business’s foundational research began at UCLA, and the
company emerged from CNSI’s Magnify startup incubator, which provides lab space
and other support for entrepreneurs. According to Carbonics co-founder Kos
Galatsis, the resources at UCLA were integral to launching the business.
“The facility has some unique capabilities when it comes to semiconductor
fabrication that don’t exist anyplace else,” said Galatsis, the company’s CEO
and chairman, who was an associate adjunct professor of materials science at
UCLA. “Our critical activities have taken place at UCLA, so the impact is
tremendous.”
Stieg said the investment in nanofabrication will have broad-ranging impacts.
“With our capabilities modernized and renewed, the UCLA NanoLab will provide a
unique resource for Southern California,” he said.
To inquire about using the cleanroom facilities, email nanolab@ucla.edu.
Pennington Engineering Building Opens at UNR
After two years of construction, the College of Engineering has moved into its
new 100,000-square-foot, four-story William N. Pennington Engineering Building.
RENO – Inside the new William N. Pennington Engineering Building, President Marc
Johnson and College of Engineering Dean Manos Maragakis, with the help of an
autonomous robot, opened the 100,000-square-foot building in a hybrid
live/online ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 25.
President Johnson outlined the goals for the building as an economic catalyst
and an incubator for high-impact research that will improve lives the world
over.
“This 100,000-square-foot building provides a modern facility capable of
supporting high-tech, cutting-edge research,” Johnson said. “It will allow the
College of Engineering to pursue its strategic vision: serve Nevada and educate
future generations of engineering professionals.”
While construction began in 2018, the concept for a new engineering building as
an economic catalyst and research center originated with Maragakis’s 10-year
plan when he came into office in 2008. The plan received a boost when, under the
leadership of Governor Brian Sandoval, the 2017 legislature made a $41.5 million
commitment to the project. The University committed $23 million to the $87.5
million initiative and secured $23 million in funding from private donors.
“At its heart, our field is about solving problems, and we are grateful to
everyone, from the governor and legislators to the donors, who saw the
importance of the new engineering building to support our high-impact research,”
Maragakis said. “Combined with state-of-the-art curricula and dedicated
mentorship from leading faculty, the new laboratories and study spaces will
enable our exceptional students to flourish. The William N. Pennington
Engineering Building unlocks a tremendous potential to turn visions of a better,
safer world into reality.”
The addition of the massive new building to campus also creates a full
engineering complex that includes several other engineering facilities clustered
together at the south east end of campus: the world-renowned Earthquake
Engineering Lab, the Rogers-Weiner Large-Scale Structures Laboratory, the Harry
Reid Engineering Building and the Scrugham Engineering and Mines Building.
“The College of Engineering is committed to providing students a globally
competitive engineering education,” Maragakis said. “This building propels that
goal forward and contributes to the vitality of our region, our nation and our
world.”
There is a 200-seat classroom on the first floor, 40 laboratories (both wet and
dry) and throughout the four stories are 150 graduate workstations that provide
master’s and doctoral students the space to pursue their goals.
“The opening of the William N. Pennington Engineering Building is an important
milestone not just for the University but for our entire region,” Johnson said.
“In its halls, students and faculty alike will perform groundbreaking research,
preparing the next generation of engineers and computer scientists for vital
careers to propel our economy forward.”
With dedicated space for all five engineering departments the Pennington
Engineering Building is designed to support members of the College at all stages
of their careers.
“At every step of the process, we are here for our students,” Maragakis said.
“We are committed to the success of all of our students, and as the new building
opens, we are also affirming our continued commitment to the principles of
diversity, equity and inclusion that are crucial to continued growth and
prosperity worldwide.”
The third and fourth floors of the building house the Department of Computer
Science & Engineering. The new space increases the department’s footprint from
13,000 square feet to 23,000 square feet and brings all of its research labs
under one roof, facilitating collaboration for students and faculty alike.
Students and faculty will be able to pursue advances not only in robotics and
cybersecurity but also networking, big data and related fields of study in the
new computer labs and research spaces, including a 25-seat and a 50-seat
computer lab on the first floor.
The new building also houses a Class 100 Cleanroom. It is supported by a
mechanical room with 10 independent air and water systems. The cleanroom is a
carefully calibrated and maintained laboratory that reduces air contaminants
from an average of up to 1,000,000 parts per cubic foot down to 100. This degree
of air purity is unmatched by publicly available laboratories in the state of
Nevada, and it is essential for research in biosensing, nanotechnology and
advanced manufacturing – industries that have increasingly come to Nevada in
recent years.
“This cleanroom will allow us to build a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary
research laboratory, which will in turn allow the University to emerge as one of
the premier world institutes in nano/microelectronics and nanotechnology-enabled
research,” Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering Associate
Professor Jeongwon Park said. “The cleanroom will enhance collaboration with
local industry partners and enable collaborative projects with the University,
in turn creating further opportunities for student training including
internships at global companies and national labs.”
The new building is key to the ongoing success of the College and all of its
students.
“Everyone in the College of Engineering is united in our common desire to make
the world a better place,” Maragakis said. “We are committed to making sure that
our faculty, staff and students work in an environment that will enable them to
achieve their goals and contribute to the economic development and quality of
life throughout the state, country and around the globe. When the doors of the
William N. Pennington Engineering Building opened, they opened for everyone. No
matter your background, no matter your identity, no matter your country of
origin – you are welcome here.”
Hamamatsu Photonics Completes New Factory
New building at Shingai factory site will help streamline opto-semiconductor
device production and increase capacity
Hamamatsu Photonics has announced the completion of a new building at its
Shingai Factory, Japan to cope with increasing sales demand for
opto-semiconductors, X-ray image sensors and X-ray flat panel sensors. The new
factory building will start operations in October this year.
Hamamatsu Photonics has been supplying opto-semiconductor products for a wide
range of applications and fields such as medical diagnosis and treatment,
industrial instrumentation, automotive, and scientific measurement.
Recently, there has been an increasing demand for plastic-molded
opto-semiconductors mass-producible in large quantities, as well as for X-ray
image sensors and X-ray flat panel sensors used in radiation inspection devices.
Construction of this new factory building will help the company not only
increase production but also allow it to consolidate opto-semiconductor
production processes that are currently located separately from each other at
the Shingai Factory and associated companies.
To boost X-ray image sensor and X-ray flat panel sensor production, Hamamatsu
says it will speed up product development by consolidating design, development
and evaluation into a single area and will also streamline our supply system by
way of production processes located on the same floor to respond to growing
demand.
The new building incorporates earthquake and flood control measures as well as
eco-friendly measures such as LED lighting, heat-insulated walls, solar power
plant, and rainwater reuse systems.
Samsung's Investment
Samsung Group is likely to meet its 180 trillion-won (US$152 billion) investment
pledge, industry observers said, as South Korea's top conglomerate's spending
for future growth businesses is going well and as planned.
In August 2018, Samsung announced that it will invest 180 trillion won over the
next three years to revitalize the national economy and foster new growth
engines, emphasizing that 130 trillion won, or 72 percent of the amount, will be
allocated in South Korea. It also decided to directly hire 40,000 more employees
in the cited period.
Led by its crown jewel Samsung Electronics Co., the group spent 110 trillion won
in the last two years for research and development (R&D) projects as well as
facility development, according to Samsung.
In particular, Samsung said that its domestic investment target of 130 trillion
won could be overachieved by at least 7 trillion won because of its increased
investment in the semiconductor business.
Samsung said it has already met 80 percent of its target of creating 40,000
jobs, and its hiring goal is likely to be achieved this year.
Under Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of the
group, Samsung has been aggressively making investments for its future growth
engines.
Last April, Samsung Electronics unveiled a vision to become the world's No. 1
logic chip maker by 2030 by investing 133 trillion won and bolstering its
competitiveness in the system LSI and foundry businesses.
Last October, Samsung Display Co. announced a plan to invest 13 trillion won by
2025 to upgrade its LCD manufacturing facilities and produce advanced
quantum-dot display panels.
In the bio sector, Samsung Biologics Co. earlier announced it will spend 1.7
trillion won to build its largest factory in Songdo, Incheon.
In the automotive sector, Lee had meetings with Hyundai Motor Group heir Chung
Euisun in the last three months to discuss possible cooperation in electric
vehicle (EV) and mobility businesses.
NanoImaging Services Opens West Coast Facility
NanoImaging Services announced the opening of a new facility close to their San
Diego headquarters. It will be the largest private facility for cryoEM data
collection globally and will serve both its national and international clients.
Designed to be a data collection farm, this new facility will
host up to four Thermo Scientific Krios Cryo-TEM microscopes, which will all be
equipped with the latest Gatan K3 detector and Gatan Quantum energy filter, plus
a state-of-the-art Thermo Scientific Glacios Cryo-TEM microscope for grid
screening. An ultra-high speed, dedicated data line will connect it directly to
the San Diego headquarters and Boston client center, so users can work directly
with the NIS microscopists and view images in real-time with the company’s
remote image viewer. The first Thermo Scientific Krios at the new facility has
already been commissioned and is heavily booked through the end of 2020. A new,
formal agreement between NIS and Thermo Scientific will allow the company to add
more capacity with minimal lead time.
“Together, the coupling of this new infrastructure with industry-leading
flexible service models, continues to break down many of the barriers to entry
for industry groups of all sizes to participate in the “resolution revolution.”
said Clint Potter, founder and CEO of NanoImaging Services. “The new facility
supports the continued growth of our company and underlines our commitment to
advancing cryoEM technology and access. We are excited to leverage our increased
microscope capacity to serve new and existing customers around the world, as
well as help more researchers develop their own cryoEM project pipelines.”
The rapid development in cryoEM technology has established the technique as an
essential tool for application in structure-based drug discovery, but also
highlighted its relevance throughout the drug development pipeline in areas such
as antibody development, virus and vaccine studies, characterization of drug
delivery vehicles and biopharmaceutical QA/QC. Working closely with their
biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients, the NanoImaging Services teams enable
valuable access to TEM and cryoTEM methods alongside their extensive expertise
and technical support for improved structural analysis, in a time- and
cost-effective manner.
Since acquiring its first Thermo Scientific Krios Cryo-TEM microscope in 2018,
NanoImaging Services has grown rapidly. Its cryoEM and negative stain workflows
are used by leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics companies, as
well as by academic researchers worldwide.
McIlvaine Company
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847-784-0061
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