Three TTU faculty were recently awarded a grant by the NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program. Shubhra Gangopadhyay, Professor of Physics; Henry K. Temkin, Maddox Professor of Electrical Engineering and Joint Professor of Physics; and Jordan Berg, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering are the co-principal investigators of this two year (9/1/98- 8/31/00) grant. The grant, which is for $760,000, including matching funds from TTU and TI, is titled "Advanced Processing Equipment for Microelectronics Research." This funding, one of the largest equipment-only grants ever at TTU, is being used towards the purchase of a modern R&D cluster tool for semiconductor processing. This cluster consists of three, inductively coupled, high density, plasma systems for deposition and etching processes. Also, a state-of-the-art magnetron system is being built.

This equipment grant and purchase is a major part of a broad, interdisciplinary research initiative at TTU, which is aimed at fabrication and characterization of semiconductor materials. Within this research theme, the equipment will support work in two major focus areas; silicon processing and compound semiconductor processing. Process modeling is also being supported. In recent years, TTU has devoted resources in excess of $3.5M to develop a world-class semiconductor research program, which is housed in the Maddox Lab for Semiconductor Devices and Technology. This includes construction of a 4,000 square-foot lab in which the processing equipment is being installed. Earlier, as part of the startup investment for Henryk. Temkin, holder of the Maddox Chair (the largest endowed chair at TTU), a building was renovated to house semiconductor materials growth and characterization facilities and a device fabrication lab and major equipment purchases were made for it.

This page was last modified on December 21, 1999