AIXTRON Partners with Ovonyx to Develop Deposition Technology

AIXTRON has entered into an agreement with Ovonyx to cooperate on the qualification of Atomic Vapor Deposition (AVD) process technology. This technology is expected to improve advance scaling of next-generation phase change memory (PCM) products.

 

As the semiconductor field evolves, traditional devices of the memory are proving to be insufficient to cater to its evolving needs. Users are complaining about various problems they face while using Flash and DRAM devices. 

 

The PCM technology was invented by Ovonyx and its largest shareholder, Energy Conversion Devices. The technology provides a basic understanding of PCM operation. This understanding extends to PCM devices, materials, processing, design, modeling, and performance. The reversible phase-change memory process used by Ovonyx PCM technology is expected to provide high performance, dense, array-addressed semiconductor memory technology.

 

“PCM is on the verge of commercial adoption using conventional sputter Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) techniques, however, it is clear that subsequent generation PCM cells would significantly benefit from Atomic Vapor Deposition of phase change materials to further increase scalability and accelerate cost reductions,” said Dr. Bernd Schulte, executive vice president and COO of AIXTRON AG.

 

Ovonyx believes that AIXTRON’s expertise in the thin-film deposition equipment for the semiconductor industry offers a reliable platform for development of new phase change material. To develop next-generation, high-density confined cell PCM device structures, the company looks to use the AVD technique.

 

The semiconductor industry generally considers PCM as a practical alternative for future commercial, high-volume semiconductor memory.

 

In last December, AIXTRON received an order for a MOCVD system from Showa Denko K.K., a Japan-based manufacturer of Ultra-High-Brightness (UHB) LEDs received in the first quarter 2008. This order was placed for one AIX 2800G4 HT Planetary Reactor system, AIXTRON’s flagship product for large-scale GaN-based LED manufacturing. It was delivered to Showa Denko's state of the art LED facility in the 11x4 inch configuration in third quarter 2008.