SPTS provides advanced wafer processing solutions to the world's leading semiconductor device manufacturers and research institutions. Through an ongoing program of research and development and collaborative development with customers and industry consortia, SPTS is able to contribute to the advancement of the global semiconductor industry.

We understand the requirement for collaboration in order to propel industry advancements and opportunities, and we work with a number of leading research institutes around the world, including: imec (Belgium), Fraunhofer IZM (German), CEA-Leti (France), IME / A*STAR (Singapore), Swansea University  (UK), and Cardiff University (UK).

The following are some examples of SPTS's collaborative R&D projects.

SOCRATES

SOCRATES (SilicOCarbide tRAansistor Trench procEsS) is a 9-month project (from January-September 2021) that is part funded by £137,423 from the Catalysing Green Innovation challenge of government agency Innovate UK via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). 

Led by SPTS, the consortium also includes Newport Wafer Fab, Swansea University, Compound Semiconductor Centre Ltd and CSconnected (the compound semiconductor cluster, based in South Wales). The consortium aims to deliver industrial processes for SiC and GaN-on-SiC trench etching, as well as in-line fabrication processes for integration of the etch into high-volume manufacturing.

Read more: https://csconnected.com/uk-establishes-first-industrial-supply-chain-for-high-power-sic-and-gan-trench-devices/

IT2 - IC Technology for the 2nm Node

This 3-year EU-funded H2020 Project, with an overall budget of 3million Euros began in June 2020. The 31 academic and industrial partners are working together to develop knowledge and infrastructure to give Europe’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment industry global leadership in 2nm CMOS technology and support Europe to obtain a sovereign position in the electronics value-chain.

Read more: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/875999 

SIPF - Strength in Places Fund

The CS Connected SIPF project is a £25million investment from UK Reserach and Innovation granted in May 2020 to the CS Connected consortium.  The project focuses on strengthening an emerging regional cluster in advanced semiconductor materials and manufacturing to bring socio-economic benefits to South Wales. The cluster already hosts 1,400 high value manufacturing jobs in the region, including those at SPTS, and is delivering well above average contributions to productivity, global exports and regional Gross Value Add (GVA) across a well-defined ~$100B global market opportunity. The primary aim of the project is to develop a global advantage in a sovereign, key enabling technology which will allow the UK to increase trade globally in critical sectors such as communications, 5G, autonomous and electric vehicles, medical devices. It will also include a significant provision of training to enhance skills across the region through a compound semiconductor skills academy. This fund will contribute to SPTS's research and development into compound semiconductor processing including new process/product development and manufacturing expansion.

Read more: https://www.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/strength-in-places-fund/ 

GaNTT - Realisation of a mass-manufacturable Vertical GaN Trench FET architecture

CSC leads a consortium of partners across the power electronics supply chain: SPTS Technologies, Newport Wafer Fab, Turbo Power Systems Ltd and the Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult, supplemented with academic expertise in power systems and devices; Swansea University and Coventry University.

The GaNTT project will develop a voltage-scalable, vertical GaN process platform (200V – 600V) suitable for electric vehicle applications and integrate the resulting device into an on-vehicle demonstrator for bi-directional battery charging.

Read more: https://csa.catapult.org.uk/2019/06/12/1-3m-project-award-to-uk-gallium-nitride-power-consortium/

ASSET - Application Specific Semiconductor Etching Technology

In August 2019, the Welsh Government has announced a new £1.3 million project to develop world-leading process technologies for a range of applications, including autonomous vehicles, novel devices for clean energy, future mobility, artificial intelligence, advanced packaging, and biosensors and wearable sensors.

Part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the ASSET project (Application Specific Semiconductor Etching Technology) is funded under the Welsh Government’s SMARTExpertise programme and is an industrially driven, collaborative project with partners across south Wales, including SPTS, IQE, CSC, Biovici, BioMEMS, Swansea and Cardiff Universities, and Integrated Compound Semiconductors Ltd (Manchester).

Read more: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office/latest-news/13mfundingboostforsouthwalessemiconductorindustry.php

CISM - Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials

With a development plan over the next 10 years, with £90 million worth of investment from industry, academia and the UK government, the collaboration aims to bring together semiconductor and advanced materials platforms and processes to deliver new technologies and products.

CISM will deliver a bespoke, integrated facility for semiconductor research and technology development on Swansea University’s new Bay Campus, due to open in 2021.

CISM is not just a building, it is a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary cooperative concept characterised by a network of partnerships already developing in South Wales. The main CISM partners are Swansea University, IQE, SPTS and Newport Wafer Fab. A further nine partners have recently joined. We are continuing to gather more support and if you are interested please email cisminfo@swansea.ac.uk 

Read more: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/campus-development/developing-bay/key-projects-bay/cism/

3D-IC

In 2015, SPTS and imec began developing a highly accurate, short cycle-time dry silicon removal and low temperature passivation solution for through-silicon via-middle processing and thinning of the top-wafer in wafer-to-wafer bonding.

Initial results of this work were published in a paper at ECTC2016 and can be downloaded here.

Read more: Imec and SPTS Technologies Collaborate on Critical Processes for 3D IC Wafer Stacking

Bio MEMS

In 2013, SPTS and imec, a world-leading nanoelectronics research center  announced a joint partnership to further advance micro- and nanosized components for BioMEMS, using SPTS’ Rapier silicon deep reactive ion etching (Si DRIE) technology.

Read more: http://www.analog-eetimes.com/news/imec-spts-team-biomems

A* IME High Density FOWLP Consortium

A*STAR’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME), together with Amkor Technologies, NANIUM S.A, STATS ChipPAC, NXP Semiconductors, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Kulicke & Soffa, Applied Materials, Inc., Dipsol Chemicals, JSR Corporation, KLA-Tencor, Kingyoup Optronics, Orbotech and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo have formed a High-Density Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging (FOWLP) consortium to extend FOWLP capabilities for applications in devices such as smart phones, tablets, navigation tools and gaming consoles.

Read more: Click here

A* IME MEMS III Consortium

A*STAR’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has launched its third consortium to develop cutting-edge micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technologies. This would allow MEMS sensor devices to achieve better performance, higher power efficiency and smaller form factor.  

The MEMS Consortium III comprises leading industry members Applied Materials, Coventor, Delta Electronics, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, InvenSense, SPTS Technologies, Standing Egg, ULVAC, Inc., Veeco and an electronics company. It will draw on IME’s expertise in MEMS sensors and process platform capabilities to develop industrial-grade inertial sensors and pressure sensors for adoption into a wide range of products and applications, such as electronic stability control, asset tracking, unmanned aerial vehicles, automotive and wearable devices. To achieve this, they will focus on bridging the gaps in performance, cost and size between existing industrial-grade inertial sensors and current MEMS sensors. 

Read more: https://www.a-star.edu.sg/ime/INDUSTRY/INDUSTRY-CONSORTIA.aspx

June 8th 2016

Past Projects

3D-TSV

In 2014, SPTS and CEA-Leti in Grenoble, France, entered an agreement to develop 3D-TSV technologies. The agreement builds on the long established relationship between the partners who have already collaborated in the past, particularly on the development and optimization of an advanced MOCVD TiN barrier for high aspect ratio TSV.

Read more: SPTS Technologies and CEA-Leti and Nanoelec RTI collaborate on 3D-TSV Technology

InForMed

The InforMed project represents an investment of >€58 million. Led by Philps Electronics Nederlands it involved 39 different companies from 10 countries including SPTS, Micronit, Okmetic, Ipdia, Fraunhofer and others.  InForMed is an ECSEL JU project and is co-funded by grants from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

InForMed will establish a pilot line for micro-fabricated medical devices that:

  • encompasses the complete trajectory from micro-fabrication to assembly and “smart catheter” fabrication.
  • brings together key industrial and academic players in a manufacturing ecosystem
  • enables optimal use of European technologies and competencies.

The pilot line will be demonstrated by a number of innovative products for hospital and home healthcare.

Click here for case studies

SPTS has secured over €130,000 to work on two Horizon 2020 projects aiming to break new ground in semiconductor technologies and pilot innovative new medical devices.

Read more: http://informed-project.eu/ 

June 2015 - June 2018

HEMAN V: High Efficiency MANufacturing of VCSELs

In March 2017, SPTS partnered with the Compound Semiconductor Centre, Swansea University and Cardiff University on a 12-month UK Government-funded project to improve/develop various processes, including ICP mesa etching from SPTS, for high volume production of GaAs/AlGaAs VCSELs on 150mm substrates.

Read More: HEMAN V: High Efficiency MANufacturing of VCSELs

Microneedles

SPTS partnered with Swansea University’s School of Engineering and Medicine and Cardiff University  with support by the UK Technology Strategy Board in 2010 to commercialise tiny (micro and nano) devices in healthcare, communications and solar projects.

“Our project with Swansea University exposes us to new markets, technologists and other industries, such as pharmaceuticals.” Huma Ashraf, Process Manager (R&D Accounts), SPTS Technologies

Read more about the Microneedles program and it's progress in this article published in the British Journal of Dermatology

2010 - May 2017

eRAMP

eRAMP, lead by Infineon, includes 26 research partners from six countries. Including companies such as, Robert Bosch GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany), SGS INSTITUT FRESENIUS (Taunusstein, Germany), Siemens AG (Berlin, Munich), and many more. 

The objective of the three-year project “eRamp” is to strengthen and expand Germany and Europe as centers of expertise for the manufacture of power electronics. 

Read more: http://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/promopages/eramp/

April 2014 - April 2017

EPPL   

The EPPL project received a total funding of 178k Euro. It included the involvement of companies such as AMS, Infineon, CEA Leti and SPTS. 

EPPL's main goal was to extend the leading position of power semiconductors “Made in Europe”. The expected improvements address both technical challenges and commercial competitiveness, in technology research, semiconductor manufacturing, chip/package interconnection technologies and energy efficient applications.

Read more: http://www.eppl-project.eu/impact/

April 2013 - April 2016

PowerBase

The project PowerBase receives funding from the Electronic Component Systems for European Leadership Joint Undertaking (ECSEL JU) under grant agreement No 662133. Coordinated by Infineon Tech. Austria the project involves 39 partners from 9 countries such as EpiGaN, Siltronic, Plansee and SPTS. 

The Innovation Action (IA) project “PowerBase” will follow a holistic vertical approach from material research across the entire value chain to advanced systems and aims to provide significant impact to essential technologies and key applications.

SPTS has secured over €130,000 to work on two Horizon 2020 projects aiming to break new ground in semiconductor technologies and pilot innovative new medical devices. 

Click here to read more. 

At over €70 billion Horizon 20201 is the largest ever European Union (EU) research and innovation programme and is providing real opportunities for Welsh organisations to be at the forefront of research and innovation and to collaborate with leading organisations across Europe and the world. Horizon 2020 is ‘open for business’, with successful applications made whilst the UK is part of the EU protected by the UK Government’s lifetime expenditure guarantee.

Click here to read more. 

Read more: http://www.powerbase-project.eu/project-work.html

May 2015 - May 2018

MASTER 3D

MAnufacturing Solutions Targeting competitive European pRoduction in 3D

Within Master 3D, SPTS Technologies, in collaboration with all the project partners (including, STMicro, Infineon, NXP, ams and others) proposed a Cost of Ownership (CoO) model and benefits for both via-middle and via-last packaging process flows. With CEA-LETI, SPTS demonstrated and characterized a CVD TiN  barrier layer deposition with excellent step coverage & electrical characterization on High Aspect Ratio TSV (up to 20:1) and demonstrated CoO benefits compared to conventional PVD methods. SPTS also worked with STMicro on the process development of Via-middle etching with 10:1 aspect ratio (10 µm vias / 100 µm deep) and achieved a high etching rate of >8 µm/min.

Click here to view the poster, presented at the Nanoelectronik Forum in Berlin 2015 

December 2012- December 2015