edfas.org ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 25 NO. 4 46 UNIVERSITY HIGHLIGHT BRINGING ELECTRONICS INTO THE LIGHT OF DAY: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Ted Kolasa ted.kolasa@gmail.com In a place known as The Valley of the Sun, one would expect an abundance of sunshine. Indeed, the Phoenix metro area enjoys an average of 300 sunny days per year, making it an ideal place for research into sustainable energy and the electronic devices needed to produce, manage, and store it. Strolling through Arizona State University’s main campus in Tempe, you will notice solar panels everywhere you look. The Tempe campus has a solar generating capacity of over 24 MWdc equivalent including non-photovoltaic collectors, with an additional 33.7 MWdc generating capacity on its other campuses and other university sites. ASU has established AMPED, the Advanced Materials, Processes, and Energy Devices Science and Technology Center to support research in photovoltaics, power electronics, and battery technology. AMPED and other electronics research facilities at ASU are supported by its Core Research Facilities, which encompass nanofabrication, materials, instrumentation design and fabrication, computing and data services, biosciences, and clinical research facilities. One such core resource is the Advanced Electronics and Photonics (AEP) facility, which serves to bridge the gap between innovative concepts and product development in an informationsecure environment. AEP offers backplane electronics design, fabrication, test, and integration capabilities, and operates dedicated pilot line toolsets for technology development. Supporting facilities include Solar Fab, offering start-to-finish solar cell fabrication, characterization, and testing capabilities, and NanoFab, specializing in nanofabrication, unique silicon processing, molecular- and bioelectronics, microelectromechanical systems, nanofluidics, optoelectronics and device characterization. Several of the Core Research Facilities are under the umbrella of ASU’s Macrotechnology Works, home of a recent alliance between Applied Materials and ASU to create a Materials-to-Fab (MTF) Center to accelerate innovations from concept to fab prototypes using Applied Material’s state of the art semiconductor manufacturing equipment in a collaborative environment. The Materials-to-Fab Center is expected to be operational in 2025. ASU is accelerating its efforts in the areas of device metrology and failure analysis by establishment of the Nanoelectronics Metrology & Failure Analysis Lab at the Macrotechnology Works, headed by Umberto Celano, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. Dr. Celano’s current research focuses on comprehending the operational and failure mechanisms of logic and memory devices as well as developing novel instrumentation and techniques for fault isolation and failure analysis. The new lab brings together expertise in nanoelectronics, materials science, and engineering and emphasizes understanding modes of operation and failure analysis of emerging electronic device technologies. One of the key objectives of Dr. Celano’s team is to leverage stateof-the-art measurement systems and explore innovative approaches to push their boundaries. “With each advancement in technology nodes, the reliance on metrology becomes more pronounced,” Celano says. “It must be acknowledged that in the fabrication of a modern chip, nearly every other step involves metrology. This underscores the need to develop innovative techniques and methodologies that can harness the principles of physics to unlock solutions to engineering problems that were once considered beyond our reach.” He emphasizes that as technology advances, metrology capabilities must also advance. “In this context, it is essential to broaden the scope of the group to encompass emerging areas like machine learning and augmented reality. This expansion is crucial to effectively address the demands of in-depth failure analysis for new materials and heterogeneous integration. We love to engage with open, real problems faced by the major analysis labs of the semiconductor industry. Our focus remains firmly on tackling scientifically relevant problems. By staying connected to the evolving needs of the semiconductor industry, we
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