AMD, Albany work on strained-silicon metrology
Leading silicon chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has chosen to partner with Albany Nanotech in a research project that is set to advance strained-silicon technology.
A team at Albany s recently-opened College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) will collaborate with scientists at AMD s material analysis laboratory in Dresden, Germany, on a near-field optical metrology technique.
The new technique, which exploits the enhancement of the optical field at the tip of a nanoprobe, will be used to measure the stress state in strained silicon.
Strained silicon, which improves transistor speed while reducing power consumption by increasing carrier mobility, is expected to find widespread use in future high-performance processors (see related story).
Under the supervision of CNSE s Robert Geer, the research team hopes to be able to make nano-probe strain measurements with a spatial resolution of better than 10 nm. This degree of resolution is said to be critical for controlling and improving strained silicon IC performance.
Progress on the probe will be relayed directly to AMD s Dresden laboratory and used to characterize transistor performance. AMD says that it expects to manufacture strained-silicon ICs at the leading-edge 300 fabrication facility.
Albany NanoTech s 450,000 square foot complex is said to feature the only 200 mm/300 mm silicon wafer facilities in the academic world.
