A consortium of leading companies in microelectronics announced a European initiative to improve the efficiency of engineering reliable electronic components as miniaturization reaches the nanoscale. The project, called NanoInterface, has won funding under the Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP7) of the European Union in the Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New Production Technologies programme.
A number of scientific, technological and societal advances are expected, including the development of a multi-scale approach, a shorter time-to-market and fewer redesign cycles for micro-electronic materials, contributions towards the ‘zero-defect’ objectives of the industry and facilitate the implementation of environmentally friendly materials.
In this multi-scale approach, models at atomic level will be explicitly coupled to state-of-the-art macroscopic (finite element) models. In this ‘bottom-up’ approach, a user-friendly software tool will be realized, which incorporates chemical, physical and mechanical information from the atomic level directly into the macroscopic models, thereby enabling computational design towards highly reliable metal-oxide-polymer systems for so-called System in Package products: Complex micro-electronic and nano-electronic systems with applications in various industries, such as microelectronics, health and transportation.
The consortium will be led by Philips Applied Technologies and comprises: Accelrys Inc., AMIC GmbH, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Delft University of Technology, Fraunhofer IZM, Georgia Institute of Technology, Honeywell, Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductors and St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University.