CENTER FOR ADVANCED ELECTRONIC MATERIALS PROCESSING

Microelectronics manufacturing technology is rapidly moving toward int egrated circuits with submicron minimum feature sizes. This is being d riven by the development of devices and circuits with reduced device l ateral dimensions, increased density per chip, thinner material layers , increased use of the vertical dimension (three-dimensional circuits) , low volume/fast turnaround design (ASIC's), increased use of heteroj unctions, mixed material technologies, and quantum-based device struct ures. These trends require precise control of thin layers processed on wafers and a need for lower temperature processing or a lower overall thermal budget. The Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processi ng program is composed of thrust areas focused on the development of a fundamental understanding of the basic principles, capabilities, and limitations of technologies for low thermal budget, in situ, single-wa fer advanced electronic materials processing. The knowledge base and t echnology advances resulting from the various research areas are incor porated into the development of various multichamber process module cl usters for the demonstration of the advantages of automated single-waf er processing over conventional processing techniques. These clusters provide a capability for creating multiple layer structures of high qu ality without exposure of the substrate to additional contamination du ring and between processing steps. Specific device demonstration vehic les have been defined which exercise the process technologies and eval uate the effectiveness of integrating the respective technologies.