| Project Information
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This project has received funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 737465. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Germany, Belgium, Ireland. |
Mission and Motivation
Mission of MICROPRINCE
The MICROPRINCE project focuses on creation of a pilot line for heterogeneous integration of smart systems by micro-transfer-printing (μTP) in a semiconductor foundry manufacturing environment. Functional components like processed III/V devices, optical filters and special sensors will be transferred to target wafers to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology.
Project goals
The MICROPRINCE projet has the following goals:
- Transfer of the μTP-technology for microelectronics application from laboratory to an industrial environment for bridging the “Valley of Death” to industrialization
- Creation, installation and demonstration of a pilot line for μTP in a manufacturing environment for open access
- Development of design rules and its implementation in Process Design Kits (PDK)
- Technology demonstration for five defined target applications for magnetic and optical sensing and photonic systems
- Development of processes for heterogeneous system integration of CMOS and MEMS wafers
- Realization of printing processes on 200 (150) mm silicon wafers
Motivation
Based on several EU and national research activities demonstrating successfully the feasibility of μTP technology in a scientific and laboratory environment, the MICROPRINCE consortium aims to set up the first worldwide open access foundry pilot line for heterogeneous integration by μTP and to demonstrate its capability on five defined target application scenarios. For this purpose, the consortium combines their expertise along the value chain from materials and equipment, technology and semiconductor processing, integrated circuit and system design, test and application. The partners are industrial companies, accompa-nied by leading research institutes with a clear focus on production and application in Europe. The working principle of the micro-transfer-printing technology is to use a microstructured elastomer stamp to transfer microscale functional components from their native substrates onto non-native substrates. The lateral dimensions of the functional components can range from a few microns to hundreds of microns. The native substrate contains the functional components to be printed and is flexible in size and material. The MICRO-PRINCE pilot line is acting as a regional and nationwide competence cluster for a novel technology with European dimensions for heterogeneous system integration and supports the ECS industry to reach leadership in key applications.
