OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
September 2020
McIlvaine Company
Marian
Opens ISO Class 8 Cleanroom
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UCLA to
Upgrade Advanced Nanofabrication Capabilities
Engineering school and California NanoSystems
Institute have planned 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.
Upgrades
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, 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.
Marian
Opens ISO Class 8 Cleanroom
Marian, a leading global manufacturer of
precision die-cut components, has added a certified ISO Class 8 cleanroom (Class
100,000) to its operations in West Chicago, IL.
Manufacturing capabilities in the ISO Class 8
cleanroom include rotary die cutting, steel rule die cutting, matched metal die
cutting, and assembly/manual packing.
Within the 1,500 sq. ft. cleanroom, die-cut
components are produced, inspected and packaged to ensure parts are free of
foreign particles and contaminants, such as dust, that could impact product
integrity. Marian understands that this can be particularly important for
applications in the medical and electronics industries.
Mike Hurrle, President of Marian's Operations
in West Chicago, IL, further explained: "With a growing need for sensitive
medical, diagnostics, and automotive display components, this cleanroom provides
added flexibly and capacity for our medical and diagnostic customers in the
Chicago area."
Over the course of the company's history,
Marian has continued to grow and evolve, investing in new capabilities in order
to best meet customer needs. The addition of the cleanroom in West Chicago, IL
is an example of Marian's commitment to their customers and to providing the
most exceptional products and service in the industry.
Marian is a global converter of innovative
flexible materials into precision components. Utilizing state-of-the-art
manufacturing technologies at 11 locations around the world, Marian partners
closely with customers to solve complex manufacturing and assembly problems.
Marian strives to provide customers with quality products and exceptional
service at competitive prices.
Qioptiq
Begins Construction of ISO Class 5 Cleanroom
Excelitas Technologies subsidiary has begun
construction for a new factory in Göttingen, Germany
Excelitas Technologies, a global technology
leader delivering customized photonic solutions, has announced that its Qioptiq
subsidiary held a ground-breaking ceremony to mark the beginning of construction
for a new factory in Göttingen, Germany.
Qioptiq will invest about €25 million ($27
million) in this expansion of its production capacities. Located in the
Göttingen Science Park industrial estate, the new site has an initial acreage of
approximately 18,000 sqm (193,750 sq.ft.). The facility will house
state-of-the-art ISO 5 cleanrooms and production-related offices, as well as the
necessary logistics infrastructure.
The building will have a usable area of
approximately 6,700 sqm (72,000 sq.ft.), including an approximately 1,500 sqm
(16,000 sq.ft.) cleanroom area. It is scheduled to be operational in July 2021,
housing a staff of approximately 100 personnel.
With the inclusion of these new facilities,
Qioptiq Göttingen will have cleanroom capacities of around 2,600 sqm (28,000
sq.ft.) for the assembly of complex optical systems as well as for coating and
other optical production processes. The company had previously made substantial
investments in new cleanrooms at its Göttingen Königsallee headquarters in 2012,
2015 and 2017. Once the new production building is completed, the overall
production area (production including cleanrooms, laboratories, and storage)
will span over 8,000 sqm (86,000 sq.ft.).
At the ground-breaking ceremony on May 18,
2020, Dr Robert Vollmers, Excelitas VP of Operations, Optics and Managing
Director at Qioptiq, said: “The innovative and trailblazing projects we are
working on with our customers in the semiconductor industry require maximum
cleanliness standards throughout the entire production process. Expanding our
cleanroom capacities is an important step into the future for us, as orders and
business prospects continue to develop positively – even in these difficult
times.”
Cicor
Group Expands High-Tech ISO Class 6 Cleanroom
Electronics manufacturing partner is
expanding its site in Bronschhofen with a 646 sq. ft. (60 sq.meter) ISO Class 6
cleanroom with an industrial cleaning machine.
Cicor Group is expanding its site in
Bronschhofen with a 646 sq. ft. (60 sq.meter) ISO Class 6 cleanroom that is
currently under construction. The development and manufacturing partner with
innovative technology solutions for the electronics industry announced the
expansion by a post on Linkedin.
In the new cleanroom, high-purity electronic
assemblies for the optical industry will be produced from the middle of 2020. In
this context, a state-of-the-art industrial cleaning machine was recently
installed. Due to two separate entry points, the machine is able to clean not
only assemblies from the cleanroom but also those from the regular production
environment.
With this fully ESD and cleanroom compatible
cleaning machine, Cicor is able to offer its customers a combination of
different washing, rinsing and drying processes. The fully automatic inline
cleaning system is perfectly qualified for the cleaning of electronic assemblies
in high volumes. Is has a flexible configuration of cleaning technologies to
meet customers' process and capacity requirements.
EV
Group Completes Construction of Cleanroom Facility at Corporate Headquarters
Newly opened Cleanroom V building nearly
doubles cleanroom capacity and strengthens capabilities of EVG’s NILPhotonics®
and Heterogeneous Integration Competence Centers.
EV Group’s new Cleanroom V facility nearly
doubles the cleanroom capacity at EVG’s headquarters and houses a modern
training center with multiple dedicated areas for customer and field engineer
training.
EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer
bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor
markets, announced that it has
completed construction of its new Cleanroom V building at its corporate
headquarters in Austria. Built from top to bottom with the latest cleanroom
design and construction technology, the new building nearly doubles the
cleanroom capacity at EVG’s headquarters, and will be used for product and
process development, equipment demonstrations, prototyping and pilot-line
production services. The Cleanroom V building, which is part of a 30 million
Euro investment announced last year, will officially open in August.
The new Cleanroom V building is directly
connected to EVG’s existing cleanroom and applications lab, and provides
approximately 6,671 sq. ft. (620 square meters) of additional
Class 10 cleanroom floor space. The new
building also houses a modern training center with multiple dedicated areas for
training customers and field service engineers on EVG equipment platforms. As
part of the expansion investment, the existing cleanroom and applications lab
facility have also been upgraded, including the creation of redundant systems to
ensure the highest availability and new safety features.
The added capacity afforded by the new
Cleanroom V building will strengthen the capabilities of EVG’s NILPhotonics®
Competence Center and Heterogeneous Integration Competence Center™, which
provide world-class process development services, and serve as open access
innovation incubators for customers and partners across the microelectronics
supply chain. Through these centers of technology excellence, EVG helps
customers to accelerate technology development, minimize risk, and develop
differentiating technologies and products through the implementation of
nanoimprint lithography and heterogeneous integration, respectively, while
guaranteeing the highest IP protection standards that are required for working
on pre-release products.
“We are extremely proud of the technical
innovation and know-how that went into the construction of this new cleanroom.
It is truly a world-class, state-of-the-art facility down to the smallest
details—arguably on par with some of the most technically advanced cleanrooms in
Europe,” stated Markus Wimplinger, corporate technology development & IP
director at EV Group. “For EVG, this new facility will greatly enhance our
ability to co-develop future applications and technologies with our customers.
In particular, we see it benefiting our competence centers, which have seen
particularly strong activity and demand. The unique services offered at our
NILPhotonics and Heterogeneous Integration Competence Centers enable our
customers and partners to shorten development cycles and create novel products
in these critical application areas.”
With its technology competence centers and
strong customer partnerships, EVG is uniquely positioned to provide
uninterrupted process development services and support for its customers. At the
same time, EVG’s local installation and support teams as well as remote support
capabilities enable continuous installation and service operations of EVG’s
equipment.
About EV Group (EVG)
McIlvaine Company
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax:
847-784-0061
E-mail:
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