Improving computer chip fabrication

Snowmaking-machine approach used

By using such extremely high temperatures and then quenching the heat, the new technique solves one of the trickier problems in computer-chip fabrication: how to coat them while avoiding high temperatures that can cause computer chip samples to fail. This has been a serious drawback for fabricators of expensive chips for research-grade supercomputers.

The technique-similar to that used in snowmaking machines-also is an improvement because the coatings it produces are always uniform and it removes from the fabrication process toxic precursors utilized in conventional methods.

The new method, called Laser Assisted Molecular Beam Deposition (LAMBD), has applications in fabricating a wide range of thin films for use in electronic and opto-electronic materials and in fabricating uniform nanopowders for electronics applications, according to James F. Garvey, professor of chemistry and principal investigator.

Garvey discussed the research today at an invited talk at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in San Francisco. He conducted the work with Robert DeLeon, UB adjunct associate professor of chemistry.

Funding for the work is being provided by several Small Business Innovation Research grants, funded by Wright Patterson Air Force Base through the UB researchers' cooperative effort with Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) of Piscataway, N.J.

The UB scientists envision their technique and the apparatus they devised to implement it as eventually being marketed and sold as an accessory to expand the capabilities of equipment used widely in materials fabrication.

"We have developed a hybrid technique that marries the advantages of the two conventional fabrication methods and overcomes their disadvantages," said Garvey. The new method also takes the process for producing coatings for electronic devices a step further.

"Instead of simply sputtering a target material from point A to point B, we're chemically modifying it at the same time," Garvey said. "What's key about our fabrication method is that it causes chemical reactions that would be impossible to generate otherwise, and it does it all in one step. It provides us with a way to conduct novel, high-temperature chemistry."

For expanded coverage, go to http://www.buffalo.edu/news/Latest/GarveyLAMBD.html