$5m for US semiconductor metrology equipment

Technology News | September 19, 2024

By Nick Flaherty

Test and Measurement

The US government has awarded $5m for the development of semiconductor metrology equipment by small firms.

The funding for 17 firms for semiconductor metrology equipment is the first award for the CHIPS Research and Development Office as part of the US CHIPS Act and microelectronics strategy.

The phase one awards from the US Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Programme will fund research projects to explore the technical merit or feasibility of an innovative idea or technology.

The projects were competitively selected from proposals submitted in response to a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) on multiple topics on research projects for critically needed measurement services, tools, and instrumentation; innovative manufacturing metrologies; novel assurance and provenance technologies and advanced metrology research and development (R&D) testbeds.

US pulls back on CHIPS Act R&D funding

All 17 will be under consideration for a SBIR Phase II award in Spring 2025 which can be funded up to $1,910,000.

“NIST and CHIPS for America are proud to support these small businesses as they take innovations, scale them for the commercial marketplace, and boost the U.S. economy. We are happy to support the entrepreneurs with great ideas as they seek to build the next great American company,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Director Laurie Locascio.

Direct Electron (Rancho Bernardo, California develops a novel high-speed camera for high-resolution electron backscatter diffraction and transmission Kikuchi diffraction which will significantly expand the materials properties that can be probed with this technique. This project will benefit U.S. industry using materials characterization for current and next-generation microelectronics devices.
HighRI Optics (Oakland, California) develops technology for calibration of the instrument transfer function of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithographic tools. This project will advance EUV lithography technology for the U.S. semiconductor industry.
Photon Spot (Monrovia, California) develops an ultra-compact, ultra-low vibration cryogenic system to support time-resolved imaging applications. This project will benefit integrated circuit manufacturers and researchers conducting experiments on quantum technologies.
Photothermal Spectroscopy (Santa Barbara, California) has an instrument for high-speed thermal properties analysis and simultaneous chemical characterization with sub-micron spatial resolution. This project will improve thermal management and thermal property characterization for the U.S. semiconductor industry.
PrimeNano Inc (Santa Clara, California) develops measurement technology for in-line metrology, which has applications in materials purity, electrical properties, three-dimensional devices, and next generation manufacturing. This project will benefit the U.S. metrology and advanced packaging industries.
Recon RF (San Diego, California) develops large-signal and high-power transistor modeling techniques to create highly accurate models for Radio Frequency (RF)-Microwave circuit design simulators. This project will benefit researchers and U.S. manufacturers of advanced radar, communications, and satellite technologies.
Sigray (Concord, California) has a linear accumulation x-ray source to achieve an order of magnitude increase in performance over leading x-ray sources for critical dimension scattering. This project benefits researchers and manufacturers of semiconductor transistors.
Vapor Cell Technologies (Boulder, Colorado) has metrology tools for semiconductor fabrication equipment to minimize the gap in the physical-digital divide and amplifying the accuracy of digital twins. This project will benefit the U.S. microelectronics supply chain.
Tech-X Corporation (Boulder, Colorado) develops a simulation tool for photonic integrated circuits that accounts for manufacturing variations and imperfections. This project will benefit the designers of photonic integrated circuits, who will have faster development times as well as U.S. semiconductor manufacturers and fabrication facilities.
Octave Photonics (Louisville, Colorado) is developing a measurement tool to analyze airborne contaminants and toxic gases inside and outside the fab that lead to semiconductor processing defects and safety infringements. This project will benefits U.S semiconductor fabrication facilities.
Virtual EM (Ann Arbor, Michigan) develops a Radio Frequency (RF) channel sounder system to accurately characterize the effects of the wireless environment. This project will benefit microelectronics companies and research institutions focused on communication technologies.
The Provenance Chain Network in Portland, Oregon has a reference implementation of the Commercial Trust Protocol (CTP) to manage verifiable credentials (VCs), metrology, and intellectual property, enhancing hardware security, and provenance tracking of microelectronic components across supply chains. This project will benefit the U.S. microelectronics supply chain industry.
Tiptek (West Chester, Pennsylvania) develops high-speed nanoprobes to enhance the ability for semiconductor failure analysis to locate and analyze to detect “soft’ electrical faults that occur on the most advanced semiconductors and are otherwise difficult to detect. This project will benefit researchers and semiconductor failure analysis engineers in the U.S. semiconductor industry.
Exigent Solutions (Frisco, Texas) develops AI-powered software to automate chip design optimization for manufacturability through accelerated lithography simulation. This project will benefit U.S. researchers and industry involve in semiconductor design and manufacturing.
Laser Thermal Analysis (Charlottesville, Virginia) develops hybrid atomic force microscopy instrument that will automatically generate maps of the thermal resistance, thermal boundary interface resistance, and temperature profiles of microprocessors and wide bandgap semiconductor materials and devices. This project will benefit devices with thermal management challenges and materials development needs on length scales smaller than 100 nanometers.
Hummingbird Scientific (Olympia, Washington) has a transmission electron microscopy in-situ specimen holder that enables real-time imaging of nano-scale electronic devices. The project will benefit manufacturers and researchers of next-generation high-voltage power converters used in a wide variety of industries.
Steam Instruments (Madison, Wisconsin) develops a rapid and accurate high-resolution ion microscopy technology for materials characterization particularly focused on challenges for the semiconductor industry. This project will benefit the U.S. semiconductor industry and researchers.