🎧 Plasmas & Semiconductors

In a computerized world, semiconductors are vitally important to how things all around us work, from phones and televisions to cars and streetlights. Plasmas, the fourth state of matter, are used in modern microelectronics manufacturing. We’ll explore how a U.S. company got the competitive edge in the global semiconductor production market as the result of a 10-year partnership between NSF, industry and academia in the U.S. National Science Foundation’s “Discovery Files”.

“In semiconductors, over half the steps where chips are being made, plasmas are used sort of throughout the whole process.”

Jeremiah Williams is a program director at the U.S. National Science Foundation. Recently, Lam Research, a U.S.-based maker of semiconductor fabrication equipment, unveiled a new product that can reliably mass produce the exquisitely complex circuits required for future electronic applications, particularly those involving artificial intelligence.

This new precise semiconductor etching technology got its start a decade ago when a small team of scientists supported by a partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and Lam Research, came together to conduct scientific and engineering work specifically aimed at creating breakthrough technologies for U.S. industry.

“And after about ten years of funding, lots of careful experimentation, figured out how to control the ions. And it was just released and it's on floors in semiconductor manufacturing companies.”

Learn more about how plasmas are used in industry by listening to "NSF's Discovery Files" podcast, Plasmas and Manufacturing.