NASCENT, the National Science Foundation-funded Nanosystems Engineering Research Center headquartered at the Cockrell School, has added Lam Research Corporation, a global supply company that develops wafer fabrication equipment and services for the semiconductor industry, to its Industrial Partnership Program.
NASCENT and Lam are collaborating on the exploration of technologies needed on the nanoscale, beyond 10 nanometers. They are working on directed self-assembly (DSA), a patterning technology being developed for future devices, bringing together UT Austin materials scientists and manufacturing equipment technologists in industry. As part of the partnership, Lam has also donated an Exelan® Flex45™ dielectric etch system to speed the cycles of learning on DSA.
“This is a perfect example of synergy,” said Cockrell School professor Grant Willson, a world-renowned materials scientist whose research focuses on nanotechnology and microelectronics. “If we want to develop advanced materials that will be used in manufacturing, we can’t just make the materials alone. We have to demonstrate the material’s full functionality to show that it can be used in manufacturing.”
NASCENT is anchored at The University of Texas at Austin and includes researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New Mexico. NASCENT now has 15 industrial members and is supporting the research of over 85 faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral staff with an annual research budget of more than $4 million.
“It’s very early for DSA. It’s high risk, and organic chemistry is not typically a core competency of the semiconductor equipment industry. So it made sense to partner with a world expert,” said Dave Hemker, Lam’s CTO. “We are very pleased with the start-up of the system at UT Austin and look forward to continued success.”
