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This proposal seeks funding to acquire a refurbished stepper and associated wafer coater, tools to enable photolithographic patterning of semiconductor wafers for device and circuit fabrication. The stepper will be located at Southampton University in the recently opened £120m cleanroom complex. It will effectively increase the capacity of the cleanroom complex, which will in turn facilitate and underpin a wealth of world class research.
Not only will research at Southampton be enhanced, but Southampton (SOU), Glasgow (GLA), and Surrey (SUR) universities will pool resources to establish a Silicon Photonics Fabrication Capability within the UK, to satisfy an increasing demand for the fabrication of Silicon Photonics devices from the UK’s premier researchers. This will encourage wider usage of world class equipment within the UK, in line with EPSRC policy.
We seek funding for both the equipment and 3.5 RAs across the 3 institutions, over a 4 year period, to establish the Capability. Access to a very significant inventory of additional equipment at these 3 universities will be facilitated.
The project is extremely timely, as silicon foundry services around the world are moving towards a model in which standard platforms and devices will be offered, making it almost impossible for researchers to carry out innovative work at the device level, or in non-standard platforms.