Surrey
NanoSystems has secured second round funding of £2.5 million (~US$4.2m) from
Octopus Ventures, IP Group, The University of Surrey and other investors. The
capital will help to commercialize an innovative low-temperature growth process
for carbon nanotubes, targeted for use as an interconnection technology in
semiconductor devices. The innovation will help silicon integrated circuit
manufacturers to overcome a critical problem that threatens the evolution to
next-generation geometry sizes, speeds and power conservation.
Octopus Ventures, a specialist investor in early-stage and expanding
companies provided £1.75m (~US$3m). Surrey NanoSystems' initial venture capital
investor IP Group - through IP Venture Fund - together with The University of
Surrey and other investors provided £0.75m (~US$1.3m).
"The semiconductor industry urgently needs a new interconnection technology.
If you can solve the problem of growing precision carbon nanotubes at
silicon-friendly temperatures - and we have - it opens up a massive potential
market," says Ben Jensen, CTO of Surrey NanoSystems. "We expect to be the
company that is able to offer a viable new interconnection process for
high-volume semiconductor fabrication, one that really exploits the incredible
performance properties of carbon nanotubes."
Manufacturers currently use copper to provide the vertical interconnections
required for integrated circuit (IC) fabrication, but this material is running
into technical difficulties as the geometry sizes of ICs shrink. Carbon
nanotubes (CNTs) can be structured to act as extremely efficient conductors, but
their adoption as a replacement for copper has been hindered by the fact that
conventionally-grown CNTs require temperatures of around 700 degrees C, too high
for semiconductor processing. In contrast, Surrey NanoSystems’ fabrication
system and process allows CNT structures to be grown at silicon-friendly
processing temperatures of 350 C or less.
Surrey NanoSystems was established in 2006 as a spin-out from the University
of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI), with the help of individuals
having a successful background in the design of thin-film deposition systems.
ATI had developed pioneering intellectual property concerning the fabrication of
CNTs at low temperature. This combination of know-how allowed the company to
quickly develop an architectural platform called NanoGrowth. This equipment
implements a unique process incorporating ATI's patented know-how, and several
unique additional techniques, that deliver the conditions for the growth of
precision CNTs at both the temperatures and densities needed for
state-of-the-art CMOS ICs. The initial development effort was supported by first
round funding from IP Group, who specialize in commercializing intellectual
property originating from research-intensive institutions.
The initial focus of Surrey NanoSystems has been the provision of equipment
to developers researching and prototyping CNTs to advance the performance and
integration density of semiconductors and electronic devices. The company's
focus is now optimizing its technology for the mass-volume manufacturing
environment, by scaling the hardware and refining and scaling the materials
processing technology.
The new funding will support this evolution, allowing Surrey NanoSystems to
greatly extend its engineering and development capabilities with a new
technology laboratory, several brand-new systems of its own design, and more
staff. These resources will be used to scale the company's materials growth
technology from its current 100 mm wafer size capability, to the 300 mm sizes
used in commercial wafer fabrication plants. Surrey NanoSystems will also add an
industry-standard SEMI interface to its process equipment, allowing it to be
integrated easily onto standard wafer-processing cluster tools. Alongside this
development work, Surrey NanoSystems is pursuing technology partnerships with
both semiconductor manufacturers and volume cluster tool suppliers, to shorten
the path to market for its technology.
