New Microelectronics Manufacturing Process To Slash Production Costs
University Distinguished and MIE William Lincoln Smith Professor Ahmed Busnaina developed an additive “bottom-up” approach to the manufacturing process for silicon microprocessors or memory chips that drastically reduces production time and costs while making it more efficient and accessible.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cyrus Moulton. Main photo: Northeastern University professor Ahmed Busnaina has patented a process and printer to “democratize” microelectronics manufacturing. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
Northeastern professor patents revolutionary nanomanufacturing process, slashing chip production costs by 99%
The current microelectronics manufacturing method is expensive, slow and energy and resource intensive.
But a Northeastern University professor has patented a new process and printer that not only can manufacture advanced electronics and chips more efficiently and cheaply, it can make them at the nanoscale.
University Distinguished Professor and William Lincoln Smith Professor Ahmed Busnaina directs the National Science Foundation Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing at Northeastern University. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
“I thought that there must be an easier way to do this, there must be a cheaper way to do this,” says Ahmed A. Busnaina, the William Lincoln Smith professor and a distinguished university professor at Northeastern University. “We started, basically, with very simple physical chemistry with a very simple approach.”
Busnaina runs the National Science Foundation Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing at Northeastern University.
He explains that the conventional method of microelectronics fabrication basically works by depositing a material in a film and then “etching away” the excess. Each layer presents one part of the circuit and, after many layers build up, a microprocessor or a memory chip is created. For each material used, a different process is used.
But this process has several drawbacks, Busnaina says.
First, it is expensive.
Facilities to fabricate the advanced electronics and chips needed to power today’s electronics cost about $20 billion to $40 billion to build and then $1 billion to operate annually.
Northeastern student Ahmed Hafez Abdelaziz worked at the new printer, housed at the university’s Burlington campus, in 2023. Courtesy photo
The expense of the manufacturing facilities—or “fabs”—means that the number of companies capable of building the necessary chips has gone from about 29 at the beginning of the millennium, to five as of 2018, Busnaina says.
This translates into a six-month to a one-year timeline to get a chip made, and any revisions after testing requires a similar timeline, Busnaina explains.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News