PFI-TT: Development of a new patterning system for accelerated innovation and advanced manufacturing of microchips

这一创新-技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是开发一种新技术，通过提供在芯片上快速印记基本特征的平台，实现微芯片设计、开发和制造方面的创新。这项拟议的研究将为可重构材料提供新的见解，这些材料的性质可以在很短的长度尺度上进行电学改变。这些材料将被应用于控制用于在微芯片上写入特征的光的传输，从而允许根据需要设计和调整微芯片图案。如果成功，所产生的技术将降低生产成本，并实现快速设计、制造和定制。这项技术可能会加速微芯片生产的创新，这些微芯片支撑着信息系统、医疗保健、军事系统和汽车工业等应用。这些活动将带来在先进技术、商业化、创业和创新方面的大量培训机会。纳入该计划的外展工作将通过包括社区大学参与者以及通过研讨会和研讨会让高中生参与创新过程，增加未被充分代表的群体在创新过程中的参与。拟议的项目将引入一种新的方法，通过先进的制造技术，实现灵活、快速的图形和原型制作，并实现更快的周转时间，从而降低微芯片制造成本并实现更快的周转时间。微芯片制造的基础是使用光将图案从主光掩模转移到半导体晶片上，这允许以可扩展的方式建立复杂的互连设备体系结构。目前可用的光掩模是静态的，因此每个新的芯片设计都需要一个新的掩模组。然而，这些电视机的价格可能会高达数百万美元，而且交货期很长。研究目标集中在开发一种技术，允许掩模上的单个像素变亮或变暗，以便传输的图案可以根据需要进行调整。这项工作包括优化其光学性能取决于施加电压的材料的工程，提高这些材料的性能，了解它们的性能来源以帮助它们的工程，以及将它们集成到掩模结构中以测试和改进光刻系统中的图案转移过程。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project will be the development of a new technology that enables innovation in microchip design, development, and manufacturing by providing a platform for rapidly imprinting the elementary features on the chip. The proposed research will provide new insights into reconfigurable materials whose properties can be altered electrically at very short length scales. These materials will be applied to control the transmission of light that is used to write features in microchips, allowing microchip patterns to be designed and adapted on demand. If successful, the resulting technology will reduce production costs and enable rapid design, manufacturing, and customization. The technology may accelerate innovation in the production of microchips that underpin applications including information systems, healthcare, military systems, and the automotive industry. These activities will result in substantive training opportunities in advanced technology, commercialization, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Outreach efforts integrated into the program will increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the innovation process by including community college participants as well as involving high school students in the innovation process through seminars and workshops.The proposed project will introduce a new approach to reduce microchip fabrication cost and achieve faster turnaround time, through an advanced manufacturing technology that enables flexible and rapid patterning and prototyping with high throughput. Microchip manufacturing is based on using light to transfer a pattern from a master photomask to a semiconductor wafer, which allows for the building up of complex, interconnected device architectures in a scalable way. The currently available photomasks are static so each new chip design requires a new mask set. However, these sets can cost upwards of a few million dollars with a long lead time. The research objectives focus on developing a technology that allows individual pixels on a mask to be lightened or darkened so that the transmitted pattern can be adapted on demand. The work includes engineering to optimize materials whose optical properties depend on an applied voltage, enhancing the performance of these materials, understanding the origins of their properties to aid in their engineering, and integrating them into mask structures to test and improve the pattern transfer process in lithography systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.