E6 teams for 4in single crystal diamond wafers
Element Six (E6) is leading a US project to develop ultra-wide band high power semiconductors using single crystal (SC) diamond substrates.
E6, subsidiary of diamond firm De Beers and headquartered in London, UK, is an expert in CVD polycrystalline diamond and high-quality single crystal diamond synthesis and will develop a 4in (100mm) device grade diamond substrate.
E6 polycrystalline diamond wafers measuring over 4in are already enabling telecommunication infrastructures and defence applications, being used as either optical windows in EUV lithography and in thermal management applications for high-power density Si and gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor devices.
The UWBGS (Ultra-Wide BandGap Semiconductors) programme from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to develop next generation substrates, device layers, and junctions.
€8.7m for French diamond power substrates
For the programme, Element Six has partnered with Hiqute Diamond in France for its dislocation engineering expertise, Orbray in Japan and Raytheon for its RF gallium nitride expertse, as well as Stanford and Princeton Universities in the US for bulk material and surface processing characterization expertise.
Orbray and Element Six are already cross-licensing the intellectual property and equipment necessary to produce wafer-scale high-quality SC diamond, expanding their core competency in diamond technology ahead of anticipated industrial opportunities.
The Element Six’s SC diamond substrate is already used in the CERN Large Hadron Collider’s monitoring systems, helping lead to the discovery of the Higgs Boson Particle and, in partnership with high-power semiconductor leader ABB, E6 realized the first high-voltage bulk diamond-based Schottky diodes. E6 recently completed build and commission of an advanced CVD facility in Portland, Oregon, powered by renewable energy sources.
An SC diamond substrate is key to realizing advanced electronics, including high-power RF switches, amplifiers for radar and communications, high-voltage power switches, high-temperature electronics for extreme environments, and deep ultraviolet (UV) LEDs and lasers, underpinning a multi-billion dollar system market.
“We are proud to work alongside the other DARPA UWBGS program partners. Industrial diamond has disrupted multiple markets since its first scale synthesis in the 1950s, and I am confident that technology breakthroughs in UWBGS will help unlock another 70 years of opportunities in the semiconductor industry,” said Prof. Daniel Twitchen, Chief Technologist at Element Six.
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