Nanostructures, Inc. - Capabilities

Capacitance sensors based on fixed and variable-area silicon membranes are useful for multi-range pressure and acoustic sensing applications.

Our inductively-coupled plasma deep reactive
ion etcher is being used to fabricate
biomedical devices for testing and research.

Custom microfabrication of medical implants,
lab-on-a-chip platforms, biohazard test devices,
and medical test and drug delivery systems.

Silicon v-grooves and micro-optical benches are used for precise alignment of fiber-optic telecommunications and laser-based systems for many applications.

Application-specific membranes and arrays are built
on silicon membrane platforms for microfiltration, calibration grids, and sensing arrays.

We work with customers through purchase orders
and R&D/engineering contracts. We handle micro-fabrication jobs of varying sizes and scopes, from R&D, to small-lot prototypes, to volume manufacturing.

nanostructures

Custom Microfabrication

Capabilities

Fabrication Facility

Total facility size 4,200 square feet
Clean rooms 1,000 square feet
Capacity

R&D and prototype lots
OEM production
200-400 wafers per month

Clean Room Fabrication Processes

Photolithography
- Substrate sizes up to 6"
- Photomask and shadowmask layout
- Positive and negative resists
- Lift-off
- Front-to-back alignment
DRIE for deep silicon etch
- STS inductively coupled plasma (DRIE)
- Bosch process etching for vertical profiles
Thin Film coatings
- LPCVD and PECVD dielectrics
- Polysilicon and amorphous silicon
- Sputtered and evaporated metals
- Thermal oxide
Other processes
- Parallel planar reactive ion etch
- Barrel etch
- Wet chemical clean
- Hard masks and etch stops
- Wafer bonding -- anodic, silicon, glass
- Dicing and trenching
Special processes
- Membrane fabrication
  - Silicon
  - Low-stress nitride
  - PECVD nitride and oxynitride
- Bulk micromachining of silicon and glass by
  wet etch
  - (100) and (110) silicon
  - Soda-lime, borosilicate, and fused silica
  - KOH, TMAH, and HF chemistries
Measurements and QA
- Electrical probing
- Film thickness
- Dimensional measurements