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CHIPS FOR AMERICA

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 32
Diagram of In-Situ AFM During Resist Development

Advanced Metrology to Enable Next Generation EUV Photoresists

Ongoing
EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography, the technology that “saved Moore’s Law,” is widely regarded as the future of cutting-edge nanofabrication. It was developed in the United States and U.S. companies in many parts of the EUV ecosystem have established dominance in the field that must be defended
Advancing Power Electronics with Defect Metrology, Key challenges of near market devices of

Advancing Power Electronics with Defect Metrology

Ongoing
Power electronics play a central role in all aspects of electrical energy storage, distribution, conversion, and consumption. Currently, power electronics heavily rely on Si-based insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT), which have large footprints, are inefficient, and require extensive cooling
On-wafer calibration kits

CalNet

Ongoing
Electronics engineers use on-wafer calibration die to calibrate measurement equipment before characterizing or modeling semiconductor devices. While NIST pioneered on-wafer calibrations in the 1990’s, most industrial labs use commercial ‘Impedance Standard Substrates’ (ISS) that are manufactured by
Keypoint and RF Channel Extraction

RF Channel Propagation Measurements and Models for Communications Circuits

Ongoing
The research community has long identified the need for propagation measurements to develop and evaluate communication circuits. Since 2011, NIST has been to prototyping state-of-the-art channel sounders for measuring RF channel propagation. NIST current channel sounders include LIDAR and camera
Dynamic EUV Metrology of Nanoscopic Thermal Transport in Active Devices

Dynamic EUV Metrology of Nanoscopic Thermal Transport in Active Devices

Ongoing
Heat is greatly impeding progress in microelectronics, which is only getting worse as dimensions are reduced and device architectures move more towards being 3-dimensional. The dynamics and physics of nanoscale thermal transport are unknown and dynamic measurements of active devices at this scale do
Blue rectangle with green line through it. Electron Solid Interaction Illustration.

Electron-Solid Interactions

Ongoing
A measuring instrument produces a signal that depends upon the value of the measurand. The value and its uncertainty are inferred from the signal by using a model of their relationship. Erroneous models lead to erroneous inference. The accuracy of SEM (scanning electron microscopy) is limited by
Harnessing EUV capabilities for non-destructive metrology

EUV Scatterometry

Ongoing
To measure and inspect the smallest printed features on an IC chip, researchers and manufacturers use a combination of electron scanning modalities (i.e., transmission electron and scanning electron microscopies) and an optical method, scatterometry. Industrially, the most common modality for
A time series of a MoS2 flake exposed to increasing time under electrical stress shows the growth of defects denoted with red and yellow areas over time. S= source and D = drain electrode.

Evaluation of 2D and WBG Material Quality Toward Device Reliability

Ongoing
Two-dimensional (2D) and wide band gap (WBG) materials are some of the latest materials classes having the potential to be transformative because of their high carrier mobilities, tunable bandgap, and atomic-scale film thicknesses. Unexpected degradation and failure in device performance is often
Today, device performance needs to be evaluated to determine success of materials development. This project will advance metrology for magnetic materials and develop models to predict device performance.

High Speed Metrology for Magnetoelectronic Devices and Models

Ongoing
The U.S. Semiconductor industry is integrating ferromagnet-based microelectronic devices such as magnetic RAM (MRAM) into existing silicon-based technologies. MRAM has much shorter write times and higher write endurance than the embedded Flash currently used. These properties makes MRAM highly
eight boxes with different graphs

Mapping of Thermal Properties at the Nanoscale

Ongoing
Continuous advances in the performance and functionality of semiconductor devices have been driven by scale reduction, incorporation of new and nanomaterials, and by heterogeneous integration (HI). However, such scaling and integrated architecture has rendered existing thermal metrology inadequate
A line drawing of a woman's head styled like a classical carved bust

METIS

Ongoing
A Metrology Exchange to Innovate in Semiconductors
RF Metrology for High-Frequency Transistor Models Project Deliverables

RF Metrology for High-Frequency Transistor Models

Ongoing
Due to the challenges of high-frequency measurements, that includes inaccuracy in on-wafer calibration and a lack of instrumentation for transistor characterization, models are currently extracted from low frequency measurements and extrapolated to higher frequencies. This methodology has been shown
Experimental results for flexible magnetic nanoparticle composite

Metrology for Integration of New Magnetic Materials

Ongoing
Integration of magnetic materials remains a key challenge facing advanced packaging technologies. High power applications require voltage conversion at or near the die, and most practical power converters rely on inductors. Beyond power electronics, integration of magnetic components such as
Integrated multi-physics simulation and validation

Multiscale Modeling and Validation of Semiconductor Materials and Devices

Ongoing
The limitations of scaling traditional CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductors) designs have necessitated that the semiconductor industry consider new materials and design concepts. For wide bandgap semiconductor devices, optimization of materials and fabrication processes is needed to
Nanocalorimetry for Semiconductors and Semiconductor Process Metrology

Nanocalorimetry for Semiconductors and Semiconductor Process Metrology

Ongoing
In September 2022, NIST published a report titled Strategic Opportunities for U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing , which cited, among other challenges, the need to understand and improve heat dissipation and performance in advanced microelectronics. Specifically, there needs to be better measurements
Nanoscale, Element-Specific X-ray Imaging for Integrated Circuit Metrology

Nanoscale, Element-Specific X-ray Imaging for Integrated Circuit Metrology

Ongoing
Industry roadmaps identify the characterization of nanoscale subsurface feature shape and composition as a measurement need for the semiconductor industry. However, IC interiors are difficult to probe post-manufacturing due to the presence of many close-packed and nanoscale subsurface features, of