For over a century, researchers have toyed with accumulated energy technology. During 1895, an Indian scientist ignited gunpowder from a distance using intense microwaves. This type of theory relies on a steady buildup of energy, followed by its 
instantaneous release. While the amount of energy is the same as a traditional power source, the intensity increases during the quick release process.
Today’s pulsed power research takes a similar approach to energy production. Energy can be progressively stored in electrostatic capacitors, magnetic fields, alternators or chemical batteries and explosives. When released all at once, the energy delivers power that’s thousands of times greater than a similar amount released one second at a time. Because of its explosive energy discharge, pulsed power is useful in a variety of settings, including fusion research, particle accelerators, electromagnetic technology and high-power lasers. Perhaps the most interesting contemporary use of pulsed power, however, is its ability to combat dangerous, military IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
Partnering with the United States Department of Defense, researchers at Texas Tech’s Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics are working to disable IEDs, car bombs and similar electrical systems with pulsed power technology that’s deployed from a safe distance. According to Andreas Neuber, Texas Tech engineering professor, “It should be clear to everybody that the IED problem will stay with us for the foreseeable future, with pulsed power providing several key methods of combating the issue.”
The U.S. military branches are hopeful about this pulsed power research, since it could save thousands of lives during homeland terrorist attacks or field attacks abroad.
For more information about pulsed power technology and its use in ozone generators, capacitor banks, modulators and lasers, contact the Glew Engineering team. Employing the most qualified engineers from around the world, Glew specializes in semiconductor applications, microchip technology and a variety of other innovative energy solutions for government and industrial clients. Call 800-877-5892 for more information, or use the secure contact form to reach our Silicon Valley facility.
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Poised to play a critical role in the country’s energy crisis, solar (or radiant) energy is a sustainable, carbon-free alternative to problematic fossil fuels. And while the theories behind solar energy are not new, the technology is becoming more refined.
Solar Engineer
The biggest barrier to solar energy use is its cost. In order to make it cost-effective, solar cells must become cheaper—or provide investors with more bang for their buck by generating more power per cell. 
Fortunately, nanocrystal-based technologies and upgraded photovoltaic thin film are making it easier to harness the sun’s power and convert it into electricity. This is done largely through solar concentrators—which direct the sun’s extreme temperatures along a focal line. Most commonly, this harnessed heat boils water into steam—which feeds into a turbine and generates electricity.
Cutting-edge solar concentrators are increasing the energy production created by legacy silicon PV systems by transforming the energy for silicon absorption—without the need for lenses, reflective surfaces or tracking devices. These new systems are a vast improvement over legacy PV systems, since they incorporate circuit designs and other technology to improve energy production and make solar power more affordable.
The newest, most efficient solar cells tested by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory outproduce older systems by 20 percent or more. As this new generation of solar concentrators is perfected, it can be retrofitted into existing solar applications-like roofing panels and PV window coatings. In addition, the technology should soon be available for commercial applications in a variety of markets.
Consulting Engineers
At Glew Engineering, we realize that solar power plays a critical role in the future of sustainable energy. The energy experts at Glew provide consulting assistance for photovoltaic research, finite element analysis, modeling services and more. Call today to schedule a consultation or inquire about our finite element modeling of stress analysis and heat transfer, together with expertise in high voltage, power, turbine control, boilers, and heat exchangers.
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Researchers Working to Perfect Reversible Gecko Adhesive
For years, researchers have been fascinated by the reversible adhesive qualities of the gecko’s foot. Recently, this fascination spurred University of California researchers to create glue that mimics the gecko’s nano-scale, magnetic foot hairs. 
Just like the gecko can turn its foot stickiness on and off at will, UCSB’s new glue is activated and deactivated by the simple force of magnetism.
This research is especially exciting since it represents the fusion of several scientific disciplines—including biology, physics, chemistry, nanoscience and mechanical engineering. What’s the application of this new glue? While scientists are still working on the implications, the invention may eventually help robots climb precarious surfaces, allow commuters to glue coffee mugs to their dash—or, you guessed it—improve the precarious handling of microchips.
There are hundreds of super-strong adhesives on the commercial and industrial markets today, but until now, none could be easily “turned off.” According to UCSB, “An adhesive that has the ability to switch from 'sticky' to 'non-sticky' rapidly without causing any degradation or contamination of the surface will open many technological doors.”
Interested in finding out more? Click here to view the in-depth UCSB gecko glue PowerPoint presentation.
Glew Engineering trained consultants are experts in Material Science Engineering and look forward to discussing with you your organizations engineering needs.
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While SEMI predicted a 2010 fab spending growth rate of over 60 percent at the end of last year, 2009's 25-percent drop was discouraging enough to leave many companies and investors pessimistic about 2010's rebound potential. However, it appears that the tables are turning. 
According to SEMI's most recent World Fab Forecast report, this year's fab construction, facility growth and facility equipping may surpass 2009 levels by up to 88 percent-approaching $30.9 billion total.
This opportunity for fab growth appears to be coming from a few different places, including:
1. Reopening of delayed projects: A number of ongoing projects were delayed with 2009's economic downturn, but many of these projects have been given a green light for completion this year.
2. Foundries: While foundries had been increasingly conservative with regard to their capital budgets over the last several years, they're beginning to spend again. According to C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital, foundry vendors are becoming engaged in a new "arms race" of capital spending.
3. Memory Companies: Previously, memory spending had shifted toward existing capacity upgrades. However, 2010 has seen announcements for a variety of new memory investments-which will most certainly have a positive impact on this year's fab growth.
If these hopeful industry predictions come true, total 2010 semiconductor revenues could close in on $280 billion. According to SEMI, critical investments will include Intel's upgrades of Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon facilities, GlobalFoundries fab New York fab construction project and Samsung's 300 mm expansion (Austin, TX). In addition, a handful of other companies-like IBM, Micron and Texas Instruments-are continuing to push for investments, upgrades and expansions, as well.
2009 saw 27 volume fabs shut down-including "eleven 200 mm fabs and one state-of-the-art 300 mm fab," said SEMI reports. Total 2009 installed fab capacity was only 15.4 wafers per month, but is expected to grow five to six percent this year. 2007 is still remembered as the peak for fab spending, with annual totals reaching $46 billion. While 2010 will still be a far cry from this number, investors are optimistic that the industry's updated financial predictions are a small glimmer of hope in the midst of a stagnating economy.
For more specific information about 2010's World Fab Forecast, visit the SEMI website. Concerned about your fab's financial recovery? Call the experts at Glew Engineering. Glew Engineering Consulting has successfully aided dozens of clients when disaster struck their fabs-and our team of engineers and scientists stand ready to assist you with all of your fab and semiconductor equipment safety concerns and consulting needs.
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CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, selenium) solar cells are much in the news because they promise good efficiency on relatively simple substrates (including flexible plastic) using simple manufacturing methods such as ink solutions and low temperature processing, unlike CVD films. Indium (In), gallium (Ga), selenium (Se) are 
relatively rare elements in the earth's crust, which leads to the question: Is there enough material available for identified applications?
The elements of the -IGS part of CIGS are produced from the mining and extraction operations associated with copper, aluminum, and coal, among others. Some recent price volatility indicates that demand can exceed current supply, but that does not really address the longer term requirements. Ga is essential to the expanding light-emitting-diode (LED) industry, and Ga has become an element of interest for the also expanding thin-film solar cell or photovoltaic (PV) industry. The following considers one possible quantity requirement for Ga CIGS PV applications.
Currently, approximately 80 metric tons (mT) of Ga are processed annually, including re-processing. Using some simple approximations (10-4 cm film thickness, ~20% Ga in the film, 1.2g Ga/m2, 1600W for 10 hours for 16kWh per household, 160W solar radiance with 15% conversion efficiency), a single household would require approximately 67m2 of CIGS solar cell area or ~80g of Ga. Thus, CIGS PV panels for 15 million households (or equivalent) would require ~1200mT of Ga. At the current rate of 80mT/year, all the Ga processing for approximately 15 years would be required to provide Ga for CIGS solar cells to power 15 million households or about 15% of the households in the U.S.A.
The 15 year number indicates that there may be sufficient Ga production; however, other considerations are important and unknown, such as the Ga quantity requirements for other applications, the actual efficiencies of manufacturing and solar conversion, the actual adoption rate of CIGS solar cells (or the Ga equivalent) in PV applications, and the ability to significantly increase Ga production.
It is highly likely that demand for Ga (and related elements) will increase in the near future, and that demand could exceed supply. Longer term, recycling will be important.
Glew Engineering Consulting offers technical consulting and expert witnesses for the semiconductor and solar industries. Contact us at www.glewengineering.com.
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Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is any process in which chemical vapors are delivered to a substrate (usually heated) where the vapors react chemically to form a layer.
A related process is physical vapor deposition (PVD) in which the depositing material is delivered by a physical means such as sputtering or evaporation.
Hybrid processes, such as reactive sputtering, are in use which involve both physical and chemical effects. Initially silicon semiconductor devices were fabricated with just single crystal silicon, thermally-grown silicon oxide, physically deposited aluminum, and vapor transported dopants. Where a separate single crystal layer was required (e.g. bipolar devices), an epitaxial silicon layer was deposited by CVD. When the need developed to create two layers of metal interconnect (a cross-over), a deposited insulator layer was required. Both CVD and PVD were investigated, and over time, CVD silicon oxide won that competition for quality and cost. As a result, CVD became a widespread process in semiconductor fabrication.
CVD requires volatile precursors that can be delivered to the substrate by vapor transport.
Initially, silicon was delivered as silane or chlorosilanes. Later, volatile organic compounds were developed to deliver silicon and other metals, thus giving rise to metal-organic-CVD (MOCVD) technology.
Variations on the basic CVD concept include plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD, CVD stimulated by plasma), photo-CVD (CVD stimulated by light energy, usually at ultraviolet wavelengths), and LPCVD (CVD at low pressures where the mobility of the vapors permits wafers to be arrayed parallel to each other for efficient processing).
Glew Engineering Consulting provides technical consulting, and litigation and arbitration support for semiconductor processing and IC design. Our talented team of experts is available for a no cost initial consultation.
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Considering the potential hazards in the semiconductor fabrication process, the industry has a good, but not perfect, safety record.
Semiconductor fabs are required to follow national and local safety regulations, and in addition, the primary trade organization, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), has developed various guidelines for safety, including the S2 Environmental, Health, and Safety Guideline for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment. The most recent edition of this Safety Guideline is S2-0709 which contains all changes approved since July 2006. The next milestone release of S2 is intended for July 2012.
According to SEMI, S2-0709 contains new criteria addressing mechanisms for hinged loads and a supplementary section addressing remote operation of equipment. In addition, this release contains updated criteria for lifting equipment, exhaust ventilation, tracer gas, and emergency off. The criteria on exhaust ventilation and tracer gas provide better alignment between SEMI S2 and SEMI S6, EHS Guideline for Exhaust Ventilation of Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment. The criterion on emergency off improves alignment between SEMI S2 and SEMI S22, Safety Guideline for the Electrical Design of Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment. SEMI S22 is also referred to for a recently developed method of determining the short circuit current rating for an equipment supply circuit.
Because no regulation or guideline can cover every possible safety hazard or combination of hazards, it is useful to have reviews made by people who are experienced and knowledgeable of the specific industry hazards and combinations of hazards being considered. Editions of S2 have been published since the 1990s. Often, equipment is purchased with a contractual requirement to be in compliance with the S2 edition in effect at the time of order (or other specific safety regulations). This requirement is beneficial because it requires the equipment supplier to know its respective hazards and inform the purchaser of such hazards.
Glew Engineering Consulting www.GlewEngineering.com has successfully helped clients with financial recovery when disaster struck in fabs. Our team of highly qualified mechanical engineers and electrical engineers and scientists has provided expert testimony regarding fab and semiconductor equipment safety.
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In conjunction with the rapid rise in stock values (March 20009 to March 2010), recent forecasts for the semiconductor industry have been powerfully optimistic with up to 87% increases in 2010 capex (capital expenditures) over 2009 and up to 27% in device revenue. As reported by A. Mutschler [1], iSupply (a major forecast organization) predicts a 21.5% increase in device revenue for 2010; however, isupply also cautioned that the year over year increase is based on low revenue for 2009. The 2010 forecast is only 8% above the revenue attained in 2008. The semiconductor industry has been in a maturing mode even before 2000 [2], and it is not likely to be able to sustain annual growth rates of 15-30% for any significant time period. Demand for electronic systems will continue to grow faster than the general economy, but one would be wise to temper their optimism for the extreme growth the industry experienced during the 1990s. Some semiconductor equipment companies and related manufacturing technologies such as that used for the fabrication of LEDs, will outperform others as previously discussed, but be sure to benchmark data correctly. Contact Glew Engineering Consulting, Inc.
www.GlewEngineering.com for more information.
References:
[1.] “Is the Semi Recovery more modest than it appears?”, A. S. Mutschler, Electronic News, 3.8.2010
[2.] “Semiconductor Device Revue”, M. L. Hammond, Semiconductor International, v27, n8, p102-108, July 2004
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A plasma is a gas in which some electrons have been stripped away from some atoms to create positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. 
Electric and magnetic fields are used to create plasmas and to control their behavior. Two early uses of plasma in semiconductor processing are sputtering and photoresist striping. In sputtering, a plasma is created with inert gas atoms, such as argon, and the argon ions are accelerated onto a target surface at high energy. The collisions knock target atoms off the surface, and at the low pressures involved, the freed target atoms travel by line of sight to the substrate. In photoresist stripping, the primary gas is oxygen. When oxygen is excited in the plasma, the resulting oxygen ions are extremely reactive with organic materials. Photoresist residue from photolithography processing is primarily organic chemicals, and the oxygen ions react with the residue to form volatile carbon dioxide.
Today, a major use of plasma is in plasma dry etching. Until the 1970s, patterns were generally created in thin films by wet etching processes. As feature sizes became too small to control with wet etching, plasma etching was introduced. Plasma etching provided the additional advantage that the nature of the etched sidewall could be controlled from generally rounded (isotropic etching) to sloped to essentially vertical (anisotropic etching).
Another application is plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD or plasma CVD). In normal CVD, thermal energy at the substrate surface causes chemical reactions to occur there that result in deposition. When a plasma is used, some of the chemicals in the gas phase are stimulated or excited so that they are more reactive when they contact the heated substrate surface. As a result, higher growth rates can be achieved at lower temperatures than would be possible without the plasma.
For more information, contact Glew Engineering Consulting www.Glewengineering.com. Glew Engineering provides technical consulting to the semiconductor industry as well as patent litigation and trade secret expert witnesses.
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Penn State researchers have produced epitaxial graphene wafers of 100mm diameter and have fabricated transistors using standard silicon-based fabrication techniques. 1 
Because graphene is a two-dimensional array of tightly-bound carbons that are arranged in a flat hexagonal structure, the material has remarkable electronic materials properties including the potential to make transistors up to 200 times faster than it is possible for silicon. Currently such capability is the domain of compound semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) gallium phosphide (GaP) and gallium nitride (GaN), etc. Graphene, a recently discovered form of carbon, is currently formed on single crystal silicon carbide (SiC) wafers. As such, grapheme offers the significant advantage of not requiring rare metals such as Ga and As to produce. The abatement of the biproducts from graphene processing is also significantly less costly and poses less environmental impact than traditional III-V materials. There is an abundant supply of Si and C; however, the only method of producing grapheme today is based on the technically challenging preparation of single crystal SiC wafers. Currently, the demonstrated electronic properties are far from their theoretical values; however, much progress can be expected in the foreseeable future. Contact Glew Engineering Consulting for more information.
Penn State Synthesizes Graphene Wafer, A. Braun, Semiconductor International 3/11/2010
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