CLOCK
To evolve from apes 7 hrs
Homo Sapiens so far 10mins
Human history 30secs
1000 years 3secs
I year 3msec
Now I am out of the business, its fun to look back and think about it on a broader perspective. Semiconductors have transformed our lives since the late 70's - for good and bad.
Personal (mis)information, Internet , Working from home , Factory automation, Globalization, Clever cars - hybrids rely on electronics.
These are enabled by Integrated circuits, flat panel displays, light emitting diodes, cameras and solar cells. These are all based on semiconductors.
What is it that outsiders do not understand about the semiconductor industry....
Make enough of anything simultaneously and it will be cheap, divide into units that will yield.
Its a manufacturing tour-de-force.
An industry that represents 10% of US manufacturing is basically people free due to essential automation - and that's a trend for the future.
These technologies push the limits;
Integrated Circuits have minimum line width of 100 atoms. This example
was made by Molecular Imprints.
Flat Panel Displays are made on glass 3m (12 feet) on a side = 2 people high and wide.
Light Emitting Diode's are a light bulb in a grain of sand with remarkably thin layers (10 atoms thick).
Solar cells are very large area light collecting diodes, that cost less than $10 for each cell.
Cameras are light collecting diodes linked to storage memory cell that can create an image with 100 photons.
The scales are breathtaking.........
BLOGS
interesting projects
COUNT THE ATOMS !
Molecular Imprints, the company that brought me to Austin, shows imprint patterns 75 atom features covering a 450 mm wafer.
Design Strategy for Low e windows with effective insulation
Something different, a longer look at solar energy,
New solar cells for an undifferentiated, overcapacity, rocket ship
First to sub 7 nm half pitch phase separation in 1978 !
Small angle X ray scattering from a phase separated sample, period of the phases = 14 nm,
M.P.C. Watts, E.F.T. White “Phase Separation And Mechanical
Properties Of An Amorphous Poly(Ether-B-Ester),” Multiphase
Polymers, A.C.S. V 176, p153, 1978
Semiconductor Blogs mostly at semiengineering.com
2016
Imprint for semiconductors comes out of the closet at Advanced Lithography
Ready for nanoimprint ?
3D patterning news at Photonics West
3D construction ahead
2015
More updates
ReRAM Gains Even More Steam
New memory solutions
ReRAM Gains Steam
New transistors demand new materials
Manufacturing Of Next-Generation Channel Materials
Molecular Imprints is acquired
Molecular Imprints becomes a virtual reality company
Some thoughts on how Moore's law really can be extended
3 ways to reload Moore's law
New approaches to imaging both large and small
5 reasons EUV will or will not be used
an interview with Matt Colburn of IBM regarding
data that speaks to the real status of EUV
The new year starts as usual with Photonics West
LIFT your 3D printing application
GaN on Si meets Si
Follow on thoughts on consortia with my annual
gratuitous use of a sport picture !
Are consortia fair competition ? – the NFL model
2014
Update to the story on next generation hard drives
Hard drive update - BPM achieves 1.3 T bit per squ. inch
Two articles on the role of big data in fab management
Predictive fab management
and
Big data in the fab
Will DSA and multi-patterning take over as CD's shrink ?
Directed self assembly - hype or revolution
The race between HAMR and patterned media
The uncertain future of hard drives
July - upgraded to Contributing writer at Semiengineering.com
Climate change and new business opportunity
The largest planet wide business opportunity….ever
What happens when shrinks no longer work ?
Beyond Moore's Law
Some thoughts on the most recent Cosmos episode on the age of the earth .....
Defects And Contamination Control
Summaries from Photonics West 2014
Materials
Bio systems
I presented a paper on the technology of insulating
windows at Photonics West in Feb. SPIE Newsroom
asked for a short summary.
Identifying the best insulating windows
The final paper will be published as
M. Watts
Design strategy for low emissivity windows with effective insulation,
Proc. SPIE 8981, p. 8981-53, 2014. (In press.)
The big news for imprint watchers, MII gets acquired
A Milestone In Imprint Lithography
A consortium celebrates a significant anniversary
IMEC’s 30th Anniversary: A Consortium With Impact
Happy New Year !
First thoughts ... Printed Electronics particularly after CES 2013
Printed electronics gets serious about manufacturing
2013
3D printing keeps getting new news
More 3D Printing Applications
Bringing back fond memories of managing software programs
Lessons from Healthcare.gov
Returning to more traditional patterning
3D Printing: Is This A Real Manufacturing Revolution?
Time to meet a patterning master
an octopus that cloaks with both color and texture
It's Printed Electronics season
Printed sensors enable new ways to interact with portable devices.
Back to displays
OLED displacing LCD but not affecting industry leaders.
Final thoughts from Adv. Litho.
Directed Self Assembly, double patterning and crying in beer
Yet more from Adv. Litho
“More photons are good”, KLA’s new scatterometry tool provides another fine example.
Drill down at Adv. Litho...
Cymer’s EUV team has an exciting few months
It's time for SPIE Advanced Lithography
Extreme sources, block copolymers, and resist polishing
at SPIE Advanced Lithography.
Another blog from Photonics West
Optical interconnect for flexible electronics
New blog
Pyramids are not just for Pharoes
LED and optics developments from Photonics West
New paper - a summary of developments in large area Wire Grid
Polarizers made by Agoura Technology. I will present two papers,
based on this work at SPIE Photonics West and SPIE Advanced Lithography
A process for, and optical performance of, a low cost
Wire Grid Polarizer
2012
Printed electronics - IDTech update
Patterned Media - getting closer
2 blogs on SPIE's Photonics West conference
An customizable imaging spectrometer – otherwise known as a “hyperspatial imager”
High performance LED’s on Si wafers – the race is on
5 blogs on SPIE's Advanced Lithography conference
You Nits - a different way to think about nanolithography
Incumbency rules ! – in lithography as elsewhere.
Advanced Semiconductor Device Lithography - pushing the
optical limit for lithography
Advanced Semiconductor Device Lithography - what is going to happen next ?
Directed Self Assembly – record breaking small features
2011
Different wavelengths from one material – a new freedom in LED design IEEE Photonics
Transdermal patches – a maturing bio imprint application ?
IEEE Photonics Conference 2011 preview
How to Print an Electron
Printed electronics for RFID’s make progress
Nanomenhirs, a new opportunity for Obelix
Cell phone optics - imprint manufacturing
Patterned LED Substrates
Photonic Cloaking Devices
HAMRing imprint or not
Imprint as the next NGL- the saga continues
Optics out of metals
2010
Impattern perspectives on the latest conference news have
been "Top 5 news stories" at Semiconductor International.
Photonic Crystals for LED's
2009
Miracle free applications for printed electronics
Next generation printed electronics
Imprint developments
PAPERS
Strategies for the fabrication of low cost molds
Advances in Roll to Roll Processing
Microfluidic Devices; Materials and Processes
Patterned Light Emitting Diodes