I-Corps: Microscale Selective Laser Sintering Process

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使高密度、高纵横比、自由三维（3D_）微尺度互连结构的制造速度比现有技术快三倍。由于集成电路对新的先进封装技术的巨大需求，这种新的商业能力可能具有深远的影响。这种微尺度、选择性激光烧结系统有可能降低面向消费者和企业的产品的成本，如云网络服务和移动计算，同时实现新的高性能嵌入式应用，如自动驾驶汽车技术、抗辐射和高加速度传感，以及互联网连接的医疗设备。该技术还可能实现使用当前最先进的制造技术无法实现的新封装架构，增加集成电路架构师的设计自由度，并实现新技术和应用。这个I-Corps项目进一步发展了微尺度选择性烧结工艺。在这个过程中，一层纳米颗粒墨水使用槽模涂布机涂覆，并通过远程定制的空气轴承阶段传送到光学子系统。在那里，激光通过一个数字微镜装置聚焦，将纳米颗粒烧结成所需的图案。在第一层烧结后，空气承载阶段将基材转换回涂层机下，以沉积下一层。然后重复沉积、转移和烧结的过程，构建3D部件。该研究的重点是在概念验证原型工具中提高子系统的当前能力，并开发计算模型以及材料/热测量，以了解微尺度选择性烧结过程中的纳米级物理。以前的工作已经证明了3D金属结构的制造，其特征尺寸小于5微米，纵横比大于20比1。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 I-Corps project is to enable fabrication of high-density, high-aspect-ratio, freeform 3-dimentional (3D_ microscale interconnect structures at rates up to three times faster than existing technologies. This new commercial capability may have far-reaching implications due to the significant demand for new advanced packaging technologies for integrated circuits. The microscale, selective, laser sintering system has the potential to lower the cost of consumer and business facing products such as cloud web services and mobile computing while enabling new high-performance embedded applications such as self-driving vehicle technology, radiation-hard and high-acceleration sensing, and internet-connected medical devices. This technology may also potentially enable new packaging architectures not possible using current state-of-the-art fabrication techniques, increasing the design freedom of integrated circuit architects and enabling new technologies and applications.This I-Corps project further develops a microscale selective sintering process. In this process a layer of nanoparticle ink is coated using a slot-die coater and shuttled to the optical subsystem using a long-range custom air-bearing stage. There, a laser is focused through a digital micromirror device to sinter the nanoparticles into the desired pattern. After the first layer is sintered, the air-bearing stage translates the substrate back under the coater for the deposition of the next layer. The process of deposition, transfer and sintering is then repeated, building the 3D part. The research focuses on improving the current capabilities of the subsystems within the proof-of-concept prototype tool and the developing computational models along with materials/thermal measurements to understand the nanoscale physics within the microscale selective sintering process. Previous work has demonstrated fabrication of 3D metal structures with feature sizes of less than 5 microns and aspect ratios of greater than 20 to 1.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.