Invited Renewal Proposal: EPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing: Additive nanomanufacturing techniques for integrated device fabrication

东京联合国大学估计，平均每2克硅芯片使用1.6公斤化石燃料、73克化学品和32公斤水。这种浪费在重型制造业中是前所未有的。例如，在汽车制造业中，成品与废料的比例大致相等。这主要是因为迄今为止使用的纳米制造技术是一种逐层添加和减去的过程。随着尺寸变得越来越小，增材层也越来越小。因此，产生了更多的减法浪费（因为效率不是与进一步的尺寸缩放一一对应的）。到目前为止，纳米制造的创新主要集中在减小特征尺寸上，这些特征尺寸现在已经达到非常小的尺寸，进一步的缩放不会提供更高的性能。这开启了更新现有电子设备的可能性，因为功能而不是缩放（或特征尺寸节点）是主要驱动力。同时，在学术界，对纳米颗粒自组装的研究也引起了人们的兴趣。随着这项奖学金的更新，我打算在过去四年中，不仅在我的小组内，而且在全世界范围内，推动两个或多个添加剂纳米制造过程的整合，以创造功能性设备。这项研究得到了工业合作伙伴的大力支持，达到339，700英镑，强调了研究在工业中的重要性。

The United Nations University in Tokyo has estimated that an average 2 g silicon chip utilizes 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 73 g of chemicals and 32 kg of water. This kind of waste is unprecedented in heavy manufacturing. For example, in car manufacturing the ratio of finished goods to waste is roughly equal. This is primarily because the nanomanufacturing technology used thus far is a layer-by-layer additive and subtractive process. As dimensions become increasingly small, the additive layers are increasingly smaller. Hence more subtractive waste is generated (as efficiencies are not one-to-one with further size scaling). Innovations thus far in nanomanufacturing have focused mostly on reducing feature sizes, which have now reached remarkably small dimensions, where further scaling will not deliver increased performance. This opens up the possibility of updating existing electronics, as functionality rather than scaling (or the feature size node) is the main driver. Meanwhile in academia, considerable research into self-assembly of nanoscale particles has also been of interest. With the renewal of this fellowship, I intend to advance developments during the last four years, not only within my group, but worldwide, towards integration of two or more additive nanomanufacturing processes to create functional devices. This research is supported substantially by industrial partners, to the tune of £339,700, underlining the significance of the research in industry.