Electronics Weekly reports  that theJWNC has added an Oxford Instruments Plasma Pro Systems100 ICP plasma etch, which fortuitously arrives as funding (2005-2011) for the Electronic Design Centre for Heterogeneous Systems (EDC HS) completes.

The new system will be used to etch compound (III-Vs) semiconductor materials used in applications such as optoelectronics, mm-wave & terahertz, bioengineering, biotechnology, lab-on-a-chip, energy harvesting and photovoltaics.



“We have used Oxford Instrument tools for many years, and continue to use them to develop new etch and deposition processes for nanofabrication as we push technology below 5 nm feature sizes,” said Prof Douglas Paul, Professor Semiconductor Devices and director of the JWNC.


Built in 2005 the Nanofabrication Centre brings together all the nanofabrication tools in the University of Glasgow housing over £20m nanofabrication and characterisation equipment run and maintained in a near-industrial operation.

Barely six months after the Nanofabrication Centre opened, 2006-2011 funding  saw the £5m Electronics Design Centre for Heterogeneous Systems (EDC HS) also opened at the University,  aimed at boosting the electronics design industry in Scotland.

The focus of EDC HS Centre was to provide fundamental research into electronics design, educate future designers and researchers, improve the linkage between design and implementation, integrate nano technologies with micro electronic platforms and "invent" new multi-scale, multi-technologies.

It targeted three major areas for electronic design-led activity: bioelectronic/sensor system design; ultrafast system design; and modelling/CAD tool development for large scale electronic systems.

These activities are highly synergistic as shown by the Department's recent research track record. For example body-area and autonomous distributed sensor networks present significant design challenges when RF chip size, performance and power consumption are key drivers.

The design skills needed to achieve the required research outcomes are in wireless systems, sensor integration, low power design, low noise implementations and guaranteed performance and reliability.

The combination  of both Centres on one campus, brought multidisciplinary expertise together in both high tech materials, design and assembly.


Glasgow University presently holds the world record for the smallest metal pattern produced by electron beam lithography at 3 nm, the world record for the best layer to layer alignment accuracy (0.46nm which is 2 Si atoms and over 15x better than anyone else internationally), and the fastest mode locked laser at 2.1 THz, the lowest loss silicon waveguides at telecoms wavelengths.

The EDC has £53m of active research grants and industrial contracts, collaborates and works with over 50 Scottish, UK and international companies as well as using Kelvin Nanotechnology Ltd to provide industrial access to the facilities at commercial rates.

Among its spinout companies are: Intense,  Xanic Limited that designs, manufactures, and supplies MMICs for applications in the aerospace/defence and homeland security markets. Solway PV,  Mode Diagnostics  and GoldStandard Simulations Ltd