Date: Jan 01, 2013 Source: EPA SBIR Success Story (
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Environmental Problem:
Thin film coatings play a prominent role in the manufacture of electric and microelectronic devices, but some deposition methods have negative environmental effects. Electroplating, for example, uses toxic chemicals and generates significant process waste and water pollution.
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) employs toxic gaseous organic precursors. The most common coating processes sputtering, evaporation, CVD, and plating are not always compatible with heat sensitive substrates and semiconductor processes, and they provide only moderate output at a high cost.
The trend in microelectronics toward ever smaller feature sizes requires micron-sized solder bumps at high density for packaging. These bumps cannot be made with bulk metal foil preforms but must be vapor deposited or electroplated. This is difficult to accomplish with conventional techniques.
SBIR Technology Solution:
With support from EPA s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, Jet Process Corporation (Jet Process) has developed an innovative, carbon-free process without toxic precursors or effluents to manufacture high-quality coatings on substrates for various applications. The Jet Vapor Deposition the bumps must be very small, with pattern window aspect ratios ~ 1, it is better to deposit metal nanoclusters.
Once accelerated by the jet, the relatively heavy nanoclusters move directly to the substrate, unaffected by collisions with lighter carrier gas atoms, and with no shadowing by the walls of the resist windows. Nanoclusters of any solder can be nucleated, grown, and deposited by simple alterations in jet operating conditions. In addition, nanocluster generation and deposition in JVD™ can be performed at high rates, making it more economical to use this technology to produce the thick films (1 to 10 microns) usually needed for solder bumps.
The company also has deposited test coatings of 20 or more microns on large substrates. The JVD™ capability for using various material sources, in sequence or together, leads to layered structures or alloys of multiple metal components, including gold (Au), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), tin (Sn), and silver (Ag). In a reactive mode with oxygen or nitrogen, JVD™ can make reproducible combinations of complex oxide and nitride dielectrics not achievable by other thin film methods.
Commercialization Information:
The versatility of JVD™ has enabled Jet Process to develop a wide range of systems for low-and high-volume production. At present, the major focus at aging, advanced sensors, solid-state lighting, optoelectronics, telecommunications, and microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMs) components and products for many advanced metallizing requirements. For example, JVD™ eutectic gold-tin and other solder layers (1-20 microns) and titanium-platinum-gold or titanium-tungsten bond/barrier layers are replacing preforms in laser and microelectronics packaging applications, meeting
wafer level processing requirements for smaller di mensions, high reliability, longer life, thermal management solutions, simplified assembly, semiconductor process compatibility, higher device yields, low temperature processing, and cost.
Jet Process also uses the nanocluster capability for applications other than solder deposition, including deposition of platinum nanocluster films on photoresist patterned wafers as a replacement for "platinum black," which usually is produced via wet chemical methods, for electrochemical and bio medical applications. The high surface area Pt nanocluster film shown in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image had excellent electro chemical response for several reactions of biomedical interest
Jet Process has worked for and/or received development support from many advanced technology leaders, including: IBM, Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments, General Electric, Hewett Packard, BAE, Ericsson, Lucent, Raytheon, Agilent, Lockheed Martin, 3M, Pratt & Whitney and SEMAT-ECH.
Company History and Awards:
Founded in 1991, Jet Process is based in North Haven, Connecticut, and specializes in rapid turn around thin coating services for gold-tin solders, other lead-free metal solders, and advanced thin film di electrics. The company holds more than 30 U.S. and foreign patents and provides high-quality coatings for diverse industrial, consumer, and military applications, including for microelectronics, semiconductor packaging, optoelectronics, solid state lighting, advanced sensors, telecommunications, microelectromechanical systems, photonics and microwave devices. Jet Process' global partners include Fortune 500 corporations, government, and advanced technology leaders around the world.
