News Article
Atmel Strains Ahead With University Alliance
The UK University of Newcastle upon Tyne has joined forces with Amtel to
create strained silicon microchips.
The UK University of Newcastle upon Tyne has joined forces with Amtel to create strained silicon microchips. The project will be based at Atmels North Tyneside fab in the North East of England, near Newcastle. A team of five university of researchers will be led by Professor Anthony ONeill, who has been working on the technology for some ten years starting at MIT.
This is Atmels first university collaboration concerning strained silicon. The two sides have entered in to a joint collaborative agreement and will share the fruits of the development.
The first phase of the work - integrating strained silicon into the companys standard CMOS process - is expected to take about a year. Strained silicon involves adding germanium to silicon creating a strained semiconductor layer with higher carrier mobility. This enables faster or less power-hungry devices. Atmel produces RF and microprocessor devices for mobile communications and networking.
