Anyone understand this stuff:
Unit to Extend BST Expertise With New Contract; US Government Funds Barium Strontium Titanate Development Effort
DANBURY, Conn. and AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 22, 1998--ADCS, the semiconductor materials and delivery systems business of ATMI Inc. (NASDAQ:ATMI), today announced a new barium strontium titanate (BST)-related ferroelectric material development contract.
This contract builds upon ADCS's expertise for developing liquid delivery and vaporization techniques for new processes and products based upon its existing BST materials and processing technology.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded ADCS a multi-million dollar contract to develop BST -- with a new combination of high dielectric tunability and low dielectric loss -- for radar-based applications. The significant developments from ADCS's previous multi-year, multi-million DRAM Consortium(a) laid a sound foundation for this new program. (The DRAM program developed materials and processing technology to demonstrate a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method for depositing BST capacitor thin films for 1-gigabit (Gb) dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cells.) Under this new contract, ADCS will further develop BST technology for high-frequency applications, with research collaborators Raytheon Corporation and North Carolina State University.
Dennis Brestovansky, ADCS chief operating officer and vice-president, said, "The ADCS business of ATMI is recognized in the semiconductor industry for its advanced oxides -- BST, strontium bismuth tantalate (SBT, or "Y1"), lead zirconium titanate (PZT) -- and other emerging materials systems. Together with the DRAM Consortium, we developed the materials and CVD processing technologies to enable production of BST and related electrodes and barrier thin films via CVD for 1-Gb DRAMs. This original BST work is the cornerstone for this latest contract -- as well as much of our continued, privately funded, research in BST-related areas.
"ADCS began developing and patenting these materials and processes as early as 1990. Now, BST and related materials are entering commercial use for integrated circuit manufacture as conventional materials reach their fundamental limits. With our strategic partners, we have demonstrated that our products -- such as Barium (dpm)2 adducts, frequently referred to as Barium(thd)2 compounds, and their Strontium analogs -- yield films having capacitance, leakage, and related electrical properties that surpass integrated circuit device requirements."
Semiconductor industry experts see a materials revolution underway in the semiconductor industry. Advanced device generations are pushing existing materials systems to the limit, requiring chip manufacturers to adopt new, advanced materials. As linewidths shrink, the typical semiconductor manufacturing process is likely to require up to twice as many materials -- and many may need to be new materials.
Since the DRAM Consortium reported its achievements of the necessary dielectric properties for 1-Gb memories for device dimensions of 0.18 micron two years ago, BST has been embraced as the material that could significantly reduce device complexity and the associated manufacturing cost of the storage node inhigh-density advanced DRAMs. Recent news from such companies as IBM, Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Siemens, Mitsubishi and others is validating the DRAM Consortium's BST achievements.
ADCS, based in Austin, Texas, is a world leader in semiconductor thin-film materials and processes for current and next generation integrated circuits. It is a market leader providing such materials as TiN (Titanium Nitride), TaO5 (tantalum pentoxide), BST, SBT, PZT and Pt (platinum).
ATMI provides products and services for semiconductor device manufacture, including thin film materials and delivery systems marketed through ADCS, environmental equipment marketed through EcoSys, thin film deposition services marketed through Epitronics, sub-atmospheric gas delivery systems marketed through NovaSource, and high-purity materials packaging systems marketed through NOW.
(a) From 1992-1997, ATMI was the prime contractor under a
DARPA-sponsored consortium with IBM, Micron Technology, and Texas
Instruments-the three largest U.S. manufacturers of DRAMs; Varian
Associates, a leading semiconductor equipment supplier; RWTH
Aachen University of Technology; and North Carolina State
University.
Today's mainstream DRAM size -- 64 megabit -- holds approximately 3355 pages of text. A 1-gigabit DRAM would hold more than 50,000 pages of text. |
