Chips future need

Analytical chemistry in the new millennium will continue to develop greater degrees of sophistication. The use of automation, especially involving robots, for routine work will increase and the role of ever more powerful computers and software, such as intelligent expert systems, will be a dominant factor. Extreme miniaturisation of techniques (the analytical laboratory on a chip ) and sensors designed for specific tasks will make a big impact. Despite such advances, the importance of, and the need for, trained analytical chemists is set to continue into the foreseeable future and it is vital that universities and colleges play a full part in the provision of relevant courses of study. 

Fig. 3. Scientist Donald L. Miller holds an integrated circuit chip comprising a high-resolution superconducting analog-to-digital converter. The one-square-cen timeter chip, known as a counting converter, holds promise as an unprecedented combination of high resolution and low power consumption, as needed in future air traffic control radar and infrared space-tracking applications. The 12-bit circuit (Josephson junction) has a resolution of 1 part in 40CK). (Westinghouse Electric Corporation)...

Until now, all in the literature proposed LAPS devices are complete autarkic measurement systems. Further applications can be found by the integration of LAPS devices into existing analytic fields. This requires the development of inexpensive integrated electronic units to operate the LAPS and to provide a standardised communication with higher process levels. The LAPS devices need to be easy in use to allow the operation in commercial environments. Due to the simple structure of the LAPS, the integration into micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), lab-on-chip and micro-total analysis systems (p-TAS) might be of special interest in the near future. 

Eventually, the optimal combination of cell-attractive and cell-repellent surface modification depends on the application and, although we have witnessed a number of very promising design strategies, successful integration into technological microdevices is still to come. With respect to the latter, persistency of the coating in vitro, the exact control of the cell-surface interaction, and the ability to induce and understand normal cell behavior on-chip, are of utmost importance and need to be covered by extensive (comparative) studies in the future. 

The need of column configurations and surface chemistries especially designed for CEC is now generally appreciated and novel approaches to improve the column technology for CEC—MS applications include the use of monolithic stationary phases [109,110], open-tubular capillary columns [86] and chip technology [111]. These configurations are currently under detailed investigation and the future will have to prove their applicability in routine analysis. 

The pressure of cost constraints and throughput will continue to drive the need for assay miniaturisation. Plate-based assay technologies will continue to be the dominant assay format, but non-plate screening technologies may come to have more impact in future years. It is also possible that microfluidic assays and chip-based assay technologies will lead the miniaturisation of HTS assays into new dimensions. 

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the present state of CMP is the result of the semiconductor industry s needs to fabricate multilevel interconnections for increasingly complex, dense, and miniaturized devices and circuits. This need is related to improving the performance while adding more devices, functions, etc. to a circuit and chip. This chapter, therefore, discusses the impact of advanced metallization schemes on the performance and cost issues of the ICs. Our discussions start with the impact of reducing feature sizes on performance and the need of various schemes to counter the adverse effect of device shrinkage on the performance of interconnections. An impact of continued device shrinkage on circuit delay is discussed. Then the need of low resistivity metal, low dielectric constant ILD, and planarized surfaces is established leading to the discussion of CMP. Finally various planarization techniques are compared to show why CMP is the process that will satisfy the planarity requirements of the future. 

Ordered polymer films made from poly benzthiazole (PBZT) and poly benzoxazole (PBO) can be used as substrates for multilayer printed circuit boards and advanced interconnects to fill the current need for high speed, high density packaging. Foster-Miller, Inc. has made thin substrates (0.002 in.) using biaxially oriented liquid crystal polymer films processed from nematic solutions. PBZT films were processed and laminated to make a substrate with dielectric constant of 2.8 at 1 MHz, and a controllable CTE of 3 to 7 ppm/°C. The films were evaluated for use in multilayer boards (MLBs) which require thin interconnect substrates with uniform controllable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), excellent dielectric properties, low moisture absorption, high temperature capability, and simple reliable processing methods. We found that ordered polymer films surpass the limitations of fiber reinforced resins and meet the requirements of future chip-to-chip interconnection. 

The fabrication of integrated circuits can be divided in a series of individual unit processes utilized in the manufacturing process. To control these unit processes the fundamental physical and chemical phenomena need to be fully understood. The present technology for making integrated circuits is versatile, but much remains to be done to fully exploit some of the unit processes and to develop new processes to produce cheaper and electronically superior chips for future applications. 

---