Atomic layer deposition thin film coating solutions provider reports record performance of silicon-integrated, 3D deep trench microcapacitors manufactured using its ALD technology.
Picosun Group, global provider of leading atomic layer deposition thin film coating solutions, reports record performance of silicon-integrated, three-dimensional deep trench microcapacitors manufactured using its ALD technology.
Increasing efficiency and performance demands of portable and wearable electronics, along with their shrinking size in accordance with the Moore’s law (the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years), set new challenges to the power management of these devices.
A solution is further integration of the devices’ key components into so-called SiP (systems-in-package) or SoC (systems-on-chip) architectures, where everything, including the energy storage such as batteries or capacitors, is packed close to each other into one compact, microscale-miniaturized assembly.
This calls for novel techniques to increase the performance and shrink the size of the energy storage unit as well. Three-dimensional, high aspect ratio and large surface area deep trench microcapacitors where ultra-thin, alternating layers of conducting and insulating materials form the energy storing structure, provide a potential solution.
“We exploited the room available on the bottom of silicon wafers, of which only a few micrometers of silicon are used for electronic components in integrated circuits, to fabricate silicon-integrated 3D microcapacitors with unprecedented areal capacitance.
“The electrochemical micromachining technology, developed at the University of Pisa over the past decade, enabled etching of high density trenches with aspect ratios up to 100 in silicon, a value otherwise not achievable with deep reactive ion etching.
“This posed the basis for increasing the areal capacitance of our 3D microcapacitors upon conformal coating with an ALD metal-insulator-metal stack,” says Professor Giuseppe Barillaro, group leader at the Information Engineering Department of the University of Pisa, Italy.
Picosun’s ALD technology has now realised unprecedented performance of these 3D microcapacitors. PICOSUN® ALD equipment were used to deposit film stacks of conductive TiN and insulating dielectric Al2O3 and HfAlO3 layers into high aspect ratio (up to 100) trenches etched into silicon. Up to 1 µF/mm2 areal capacitance was obtained, which is the new record for this capacitor type.
Power and energy densities, 566 W/cm2 and 1.7 µWh/cm2, were excellent and surpassing the values achieved with the most of the other capacitor technologies. The ALD microcapacitors showed also outstanding voltage and temperature stability, up to 16 V and 100 oC, over 100 hours continuous operation.
These performance indicators pave the way to industrial applications of this capacitor technology. This is further facilitated by ALD’s mature position in modern semiconductor industries, where the technology is already integrated into practically all advanced microchip component manufacturing lines.
