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SCHOTT, the international technology group and specialty glass expert, will debut the significantly improved photo-sensitive glass FOTURAN® II, which highlights the company’s expanded thin glass and wafer portfolio, at SPIE Photonics West. This material is characterized by advanced photosensitivity and homogeneity. These unique properties combined allow a high aspect ratio, and therefore enable radio frequency (RF) components and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) manufacturers to create substrates with significantly finer structures for various applications. SCHOTT will present FOTURAN® II wafers for the first time at SPIE Photonics West (booth #1314) from Feb. 16 to 18, in San Francisco.
SCHOTT is a pioneer in photosensitive glass. For over 30 years, the company’s FOTURAN® glass has been a well-known and proven specialty glass material whenever extremely fine structures are needed without the efforts of regular resist-based photolithography. FOTURAN® is a proven technology in various application fields in micro-systems technology, semiconductors, telecommunications, RF components, microfluidics, micro-optics, and MEMS sensors.
For example, structured substrates out of the improved FOTURAN® II allow for power inductors with a small footprint in high frequency RF devices, a high Q factor, and high self-resonance frequency (SRF). In the field of biotechnology, microfluidics is moving to the mainstream, aiding a wide variety of fields including medical diagnostics, life sciences research, and drug delivery and synthesis. Here, FOTURAN® II can be used to produce re-usable, easy-to-clean, and optically transparent titer-plates. In contrast to silicon sensors, FOTURAN® II’s structurability enables the design of flow sensors with small thermal masses, creating ultra-fast response times and very good chemical stability. Lastly, FOTURAN® II can be used in semiconductor substrate and packaging processing on standard equipment.
Enhanced manufacturing leads to improved benefits
FOTURAN® II’s improved production process ensures high reproducibility and homogeneity of photosensitivity and optical characteristics across the wafer.
“The special properties of FOTURAN® II enable research and industry experts to create substrates with significantly finer microstructure sizes at the micrometer level with unprecedented aspect ratios,” explains Fredrik Prince, Head of the Strategic Business Field Thin Glass & Wafers. “These characteristics allow engineers to pack more power into devices ranging from semiconductors to medical equipment, and pushes the technology smaller and smaller without sacrificing performance.”
FOTURAN® II is available in 6- or 8-inch round wafers and square substrates up to 200 x 200 mm with thicknesses between 0.5 mm and 1 mm. The wafers are structured and processed in three steps: UV-exposure (with standard lithography equipment without the use of photo-resist), tempering (heat treatment), and etching; additional ceramization is also an option when even higher temperature stability is required.
FOTURAN® is a registered trademark of SCHOTT AG.
About SCHOTT
SCHOTT (schott.com) is a leading international technology group in the areas of specialty glass and glass-ceramics. The company has more than 130 years of outstanding development, materials and technology expertise and offers a broad portfolio of high-quality products and intelligent solutions. SCHOTT is an innovative enabler for many industries, including the home appliance, pharmaceutical, electronics, optics, automotive and aviation industries. SCHOTT strives to play an important part of everyone’s life and is committed to innovation and sustainable success. The group maintains a global presence with production sites and sales offices in 35 countries. With its workforce of approximately 15,000 employees, sales of $2.24 billion were generated in fiscal year 2014/2015.
SCHOTT’s photo-sensitive FOTURAN® II glass wafers can be structured and processed in three steps: UV-exposure, tempering, etching, and optionally ceramization.
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