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

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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.