MICRO/NANO FABRICATION

The NTC has a 250 m2 clean room (class 10-100) with a complete production line for the micro/nanofabrication on silicon with CMOS compatible technology that allows the processing of both photonic and electronic integrated circuits. The clean room is operated by a team of process and equipment engineers with a strong experience in developing and optimizing the required manufacturing  processes as well as running and mantaining the state-of-the-art equipment.

The NTC facility offers nanofabrication capabilities to both internal Institute groups and external research groups and technology companies (national and international) that may require its capabilities. The principal goal of NTC strategic planning was to become a shared infrastructure and common platform because integrates an important part of the equipment mainly based on silicon technologies for wafers of 150mm and 200mm but can also operate with substrates of different materials and sizes on demand.

The available nanofabrication capabilities at the NTC can therefore address the small series (alpha and beta) that are needed by companies before developing large volumes manufacturing. The Nanofabrication cleanroom of the NTC covers an area of 500 m2 and has been certified by the TüV (German standards organization) to conform to classes ISO-4, ISO-5, ISO-6 and ISO-7 according to standard ISO-14644.

In addition to the specific micro – nanofabrication and characterization offer in silicon photonics, NTC proposes to offer comprehensive “onestop shop” service to public institutions and technology companies. These services provide the following:

The NTC cleanroom is a micro and nanofabrication facility. This lab excels at combining technologies and materials within a single device, for example, optical or mechanical sensors with integrated processing circuitry and onboard power generation. Silicon is the most common substrate material as it is relatively inexpensive, has a wide variety of useful properties, and is easy to machine. III-V compound semiconductors also have the possibility to be processed at the NTC, and substrates consisting of other materials. Most of our hardware can handle small pieces up to 200mm round substrates.

The NTC facility offers nanofabrication capabilities to both internal Institute groups and external research groups and technology companies (national and international) that may require its capabilities.