Nanotechnology is at the center of much of the emerging scientific breakthroughs of our time. The ability to manipulate matter at the almost atomic scale enables a wide range of scientific and engineering discoveries. Key to the realization of many breakthroughs is the ability to rapidly fabricate and test devices and concepts at the nanoscale. This proposal seeks to bring together a diverse body of experts to examine and move forward the state-of-the art of nanomanufacturing.
Objective: The main objective of this workshop is to bring together industry, government and academic leaders in manufacturing and nanotechnology for a two day interactive discussion on prototyping of emerging devices enabled by precisely integrating nano-scale structures and materials. The goal of this workshop is to explore ways to take the techniques and methods developed in the lab and translate them into nanomanufacturing systems on a scale and cost that allows them to be widely adopted by organizations, large and small.
Intellectual Merit: Nanotechnology is at the center of much of the emerging scientific breakthroughs of our time. The ability to manipulate matter at the almost atomic scale enables a wide range of scientific and engineering discoveries. Key to the realization of many breakthroughs is the ability to rapidly fabricate and test devices and concepts at the nanoscale. This proposal seeks to bring together a diverse body of experts to examine and move forward the state-of-the art of nanomanufacturing.
Broader Impacts: While transformative in the lab, nanotechnology has not made its way into the every-day tool set of aspiring companies. Key to their ability to innovate is the development of rapid prototypes of nanoscale devices, sensors and structures. This workshop will bring together experts to enable collaborations and also cross pollination of ideas. Furthermore, the workshops directive is to develop a roadmap and action plan for accelerating the development of nanomanufacturing infrastructure. The workshop will present a report on its findings and will archive the discussions and paper proceedings for world-wide distribution.
The semiconductor industry infrastructure provides incredible capabilities in the senseof process performance and control, process speeds, and yield and is particularly suited for high volume production of CMOS devices such as micro-processors andmemory. If a designer is interested in creating innovative devices, foundries offer the capabilities of fabricating ASICs. However, the designers are highly constrained bydesign rules, choice of substrate size and substrate materials, and choice of advanced functional materials that can be integrated into the devices. The ENRI workshop participants concluded that this highly constrained semiconductorfabrication environment stifles innovation. For innovative manufacturing, the workshop participants concluded that there is a growing disparity between tools used for semiconductor manufacturing and those appropriate for the rapid innovation required to bring exciting new nanotechnology products and applications to the market. The restrictions on acceptable substrates, materials, and processes are already a problem; and even if the equipment is made available at no cost to university and other research laboratories the supplies and maintenance can be extremely expensive. There was unanimity that less expensive fabrication equipmentdesigned for a variety of substrate types, and for processes that integrate novelmaterials types is needed. Additionally, a need for a variety of nano-scale metrology tools was discussed to enable development of robust nano-scale fabrication processes.However, in the limited time at this workshop, there was no consensus established on what enabling specifications should be the focus, and how these specifications could be eased – relative to high end semiconductor tools – to allow low cost equipment to be produced. Similarly, when asked what opportunities existed in the realm of innovative devicesand systems and specific nanofabrication tools, processes, and metrology a fairly lengthy list was developed as documented in the final report. However, although we asked for specificquantitative data in terms of capabilities beyond the state of the art, production and capital equipment costs, the scalability and gap analysis of the applications, marketanalysis, and barriers to innovation, the workshop participants did not have the time or resources to provide such quantitative data which could lead to actionable recommendations. The complete list of outcomes and results, as well as all technical papers from teh workshop, can be found at www.enri2013.org
