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NIST in Your Chips, Electronic Chips That Is |
The ongoing microelectronic revolution is everywhere apparent, and NIST is a central part of it. |
Chips,
they're everywhere. From the mother board of your
computer to the combustion controller of your automobile
to the singing birthday card you just gave to your
mother, microelectronic chips are behind the scenes. The National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) has provided research
and measurement support for the U.S. semiconductor
industry--from whence all of those chips come--since its
infancy. Many of the test and measurement devices used by
chip makers to control fabrication or to assess the
quality of finished products originated at NIST. To calibrate their own equipment for measuring such features as thickness of the ultrathin layers applied to wafer surfaces or the size of the devices on the chips, the semiconductor industry has relied upon NIST's Standard Reference Materials (SRMs). An example is the linewidth SRM used by firms to check the accuracy of equipment that measures lines on photomasks--templates for creating two-dimensional circuitry patterns on chip surfaces. The SRM helped cut measurement errors by roughly 90% and was estimated to save photomask manufacturers about $30 million annually. Today, as part of the National Semiconductor Metrology Program, NIST continues the tradition of working intimately with the microelectronics industry to develop the measurement science and technology that the industry will need to remain progressive and competitive in the coming years and decades. |
| Links: | Much of the research relevant to the measurement needs of the electronics industry is carried out by scientists and engineers in the Semiconductor Electronics Division of NIST's Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory. |