Wacker Develops Special Silane for Microchips
Wacker develops silane that significantly boosts microchip performance.
Modern semiconductor chips contain billions of transistors packed into the tightest spaces. Advances in miniaturization have increased transistor count and semiconductor performance, but also create various technical challenges. One of these challenges involves interactions between interconnects and transistors. As a result of increasing circuit density and higher switching frequencies, electromagnetic fields are limiting the performance of the newest generation of microchips.
Wacker's new product offers a practical solution to this issue. The product is a specialized silane composed of silicon, carbon and chlorine, serving as an important layer-forming precursor in semiconductor manufacturing. By reacting with the surface of a heated ultra-pure silicon wafer, the product creates an insulating layer with low dielectric constant, reducing electromagnetic interference on charges moving at high frequencies in interconnects.
Thomas Koini, Head of the Silicones Division at Wacker, explained: "Through intensive research efforts, our chemists have successfully developed a silane that significantly improves microchip performance. This product facilitates the development of computer chips with highly integrated and complex structures. Such chips are becoming increasingly essential for applications that must perform computationally intensive tasks such as artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and cloud computing."
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