Aluminum as an interconnect material in combination with silicate glasses as insulators have been exclusively used for IC metallization during the last few decades. Technology development has been driven by a continuous reduction of feature sizes.
Carbon nanotubes for interconnect and sensor applications:
the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNT) in the year 1991 big efforts have been made to profit of their outstanding structural, electronic and mechanical properties in various applications.
During many years of work in the area of circuit and system design, an extensive knowledge in application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design has been accumulated. Special know-how and experience exist in the field of PLD and FPGA (field programmable gate arrays) design and application.
The development of integrated circuits to drive micro actuators and to process signals of micro sensors are the main topics in the research activities of the "microsystem electronics" working group at the Chair of Electronic Devices.
Based on the technological processes and the equipment available, the Center for Microtechnologies is able to contribute in photovoltaics R&D in several ways. The experience in thin film deposition, annealing, dry etching and film characterization represents the best prerequisite for research in process development.
Development of new technologies needs new or optimized processes and equipment. Especially for this, advanced models and simulation tools for PVD and CVD steps are currently built up as a new focus.
