Palo Alto Research Center opens new ‘cleanroom as a service’ facilities

Palo Alto Research Center (PARC, a Xerox company) of Palo Alto, CA, USA has opened new cleanroom facilities as an open innovation lab for use by corporate research departments, government agencies and start-up companies to develop prototype electronic devices and novel technologies quickly and cost-effectively.

PARC’s shared ‘cleanroom-as-a-service’ centre is designed to enable partners to develop and test new thin-film electronics and optoelectronic devices, providing end-to-end processes to design and fabricate a wide variety of active devices. This makes the PARC Cleanroom one of the few facilities worldwide that can prototype display and imaging thin-film transistor backplanes that are compatible with manufacturing facilities, it is claimed.

The PARC Cleanroom is equipped with a wide range of processing tools (e.g. for deposition, electroplating, etching, wafer bonding and sputtering). In addition, PARC Cleanroom clients can draw on PARC’s expertise in working with semiconductor thin-film materials including amorphous silicon, metal oxides, low-temperature polysilicon and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

“The new cleanroom gives PARC’s partners a new-found ability to develop and test exciting products in the areas of printed organic semiconductors, flexible electronics, nanowire devices, and solar cells,” says Bob Street, PARC senior research fellow & manager of the Printed Electronic Devices area.

“Many large technology manufacturers already have advanced cleanrooms in place, but very few facilities are readily available to those who need small- and medium-sized research and development capabilities to develop next-generation electronic devices,” says Noble Johnson, PARC research fellow & manager of the Optoelectronic Materials and Devices area. “Using these advanced tools, our expert staff is poised to help clients with their prototype designs, simulation and fabrication.”

In the field of optoelectronics, PARC specializes in the growth and processing of aluminium gallium indium nitride (AlGaInN) materials, using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Dedicated facilities at the PARC Cleanroom are also available for the fabrication of laser diodes and light-emitting diodes that operate in the visible and UV spectrums.

Tags: MOCVD Laser diode

Visit: www.parc.com