By Yang Mien-chieh and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
National Taiwan University (NTU) has established open semiconductor research facilities that give researchers access to equipment for chip fabrication, development, analysis and testing.
The facilities were established under the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Taiwan Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program (CBI), allowing researchers from other universities to use the equipment to create an open semiconductor research and development environment.
The NSTC has identified gaps in the resources available for university-led semiconductor research and invested NT$300 million (US$9.2 million) over three years to establish 60 key facilities and pieces of equipment at seven semiconductor research institutes nationwide, CBI convener and National Chi Nan University president Wu Tung-hsing (武東星) said.
An image of a semiconductor wafer is displayed at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s Museum of Innovation in Hsinchu City on Nov. 21, 2024.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP
NTU contributed NT$100 million toward 11 of the facilities and has made them available to academics, students and researchers through its Web site, Wu said.
The CBI program has helped integrate semiconductor-related resources at universities, while NTU’s participation has helped bring its research capabilities in line with those of leading universities overseas, NTU College of Advanced Technology dean Wu Chih-i (吳志毅) said.
NTU has a cleanroom that has been used by more than 12,000 people over the past three years. Usage increased from 7.5 percent in 2024 to 23.8 percent this year, NTU professor Chen Chien-fu (陳建甫) said.
The university has electron-beam lithography equipment with a resolution of up to 8 nanometers, atomic layer deposition and etching systems, and equipment for measuring nanomaterials and semiconductor devices, Chen said.
The program has also contributed to research published by NTU professors, including a paper published in Nature on July 1 titled “Directly probing the carrier transfer length in 2D-material transistors.”
A team led by Lee Min-hung (李敏鴻) has also developed a hafnium zirconium oxide nanocapacitor that combines energy storage, waste-heat power generation and active chip cooling, providing a potential new approach to energy and thermal management for future chips.
NTU said it has approached Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, Etron Technology, Ennostar Corp, Radiant Opto-Electronics Corp, Innolux Corp and Materials Analysis Technology about collaborations based on its research.
The collaborations could be worth a combined NT$84 million, it said.
The university is also working with international partners, including Pennsylvania State University, on cross-border research and training for semiconductor talent, it added.