Voltaix obtains exclusive rights to SiGe technology developed at ASU

September 16, 2005, North Branch, NJ--Voltaix, a manufacturer of chemicals and gases for the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, announced that they have obtained world-wide exclusive rights to silicon germanium (SiGe) materials technology developed at Arizona State University (ASU; Tempe, AZ). Voltaix has licensed the technology from Arizona Technology Enterprises (AZTE), Arizona State University's technology commercialization company.

The innovation developed by researchers in the Kouvetakis group at Arizona State University could lead to breakthroughs in the manufacture of advanced CMOS substrates, CMOS-integrated MEMS, thin film amorphous solar cells, and nano-scale quantum-dot silicon photonics. As reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 27, 9855-9864, 2005) and Applied Physics Letters (Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 080131, 2005), the new technology utilizes previously unknown designer SiGe precursors to precisely control the chemical composition and morphology of films grown by chemical vapor deposition.

For the first time, it is possible to deposit smooth, fully relaxed germanium-rich SiGe layers at temperatures under 500 oC that contain less than 106 dislocations/cm2. Further, at higher temperatures, it is possible to deposit arrays of highly uniform quantum dots with precisely controlled stoichiometry. The key building blocks of this technology are the entire silyl-germyl sequence of molecules. Dr. John Kouvetakis noted that "This family of compounds also provides a unique route to a new class of epitaxial layers and coherent islands (quantum dots) of Ge-rich Si-Ge-Sn optoelectronic materials fully integrated with Si technologies."

"Chip makers are increasingly looking to the primary materials manufacturers for solutions to their manufacturing challenges," said Dr. Matthew Stephens, COO of Voltaix. "Through this agreement, Voltaix is able to provide the new materials and new deposition technologies needed to help our customers improve the performance of their devices and the throughput of their processes."