Michael Watts

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Mike Watts is a contributing writer at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Advanced Semiconductor Device Lithography – what is going to happen next ?
By Michael Watts - 07 Mar, 2012 - Comments: 0

by Michael P. C. Watts The noise and hype level around lithography these days is rather loud. At SPIE’s Advanced Lithography conference this year, a huge crowd heard all the different strategies and opinions. Is there any way to make sense of all the confusion? This is my view ! To start, I think it’s worth remembering what has to be accomplished. The goal is to manufacture sub 22 nm ... » read more

Directed Self Assembly – record breaking small features
By Michael Watts - 27 Feb, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Michael P.C. Watts Directed Self Assembly (DSA) was the breakout subject at this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference. This conference is the biggest annual get together for lithography nerds, and I use it to keep up with the latest academic and industrial trends. Anyone who is anyone seems to be evaluating DSA. On a personal note, as it turns out, I did my PhD in block copolymer... » read more

High performance LEDs on Si wafers – the race is on
By Michael Watts - 26 Jan, 2012 - Comments: 0

Light Emitting Diodes (LED’s) are about to pick up one of the key drivers from the low cost IC industry – Gallium Nitride (GaN) LED’s are being manufactured on large silicon wafers. This opens the future prospect of manufacturing 300 mm wafers filled with LED’s at a huge cost advantage. The larger area means that there are many more devices per process operation, which has driven the se... » read more

Different wavelengths from one material – a new freedom in LED design
By Michael Watts - 03 Jan, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Michael P.C. Watts When light is emitted from a particle that contains a few hundred atoms, the wavelength of the light is affected by the size of the region – this is a very interesting quantum effect that provides a way of tuning wavelengths of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) independent of the band-gap of the material. In particular, there is a possibility of creating a white LED or a gr... » read more

Transdermal patches – a maturing bio imprint application ?
By Michael Watts - 10 Nov, 2011 - Comments: 0

Michael P.C. Watts It looks to me that Kimberly Clark (UK) are targeting the $3B transdermal patch market using imprint technology in a new development program with imprint supplier - Obducat (Sweden). Kimberly-Clark is one of the world’s largest paper companies, who have been acquiring medical companies over the last decade. In my experience, one of the key milestones in the maturation... » read more

IEEE Photonics or LEOS conference preview
By Michael Watts - 20 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Michael Watts “Visualizing stem cells in 3D”, perhaps from Peyton Manning or Dick Cheney, is a paper that actually connects to the headlines. University of Maryland researchers will detail a non-destructive imaging technology they have developed to enable better three-dimensional viewing of fluorescent-labeled stem cells within a tissue scaffold. The existing alternative uses cryogeni... » read more

How to Print an Electron
By Michael Watts - 30 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Michael P.C. Watts Printed electronics does not involve printing electrons, but you get the idea. Every start up and corporate research group have their own version of printed electronics using different semiconductors, dielectrics or metallization strategy. As usual, I like to focus on patterning. There are 4 patterning strategies, conventional resists and imaging, imprint, flexograph... » read more

Printed electronics for RFID’s make progress
By Michael Watts - 30 Jul, 2011 - Comments: 0

The news that a printed electronics startup, Kovio, had received new round of funding prompted further thoughts on exactly where printed electronics will pay off. Kovio raised $15 million to pursue Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID devices. NFC’s claim to fame is that it supports communication by touch. One of the most talked about applications for NFC is to use a cell phone as a credit ... » read more

Nanomenhirs, a new opportunity for Obelix
By Michael Watts - 24 Jun, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Michael P.C. Watts In classical times there was a successful business in menhirs. Menhirs are stone pillars that date from Stone Age times and are believed to have been used by druids for human sacrifice, used as territorial markers or elements of a complex ideological system, or functioned as early calendars … in other words the experts do not have a clue what they were used for ! ... » read more

Cell phone optics, a production imprint application.
By Michael Watts - 02 Jun, 2011 - Comments: 0

In all the discussion about the commercial viability of imprint, a manufacturing line has been quietly put in place to imprint lenses of cell phone camera chips. The company leading these developments is Heptagon with head office in Switzerland. At the same time, others are looking at the opportunity and bringing innovative technologies to add new features such as zooms, autofocus and image sta... » read more

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