The Grenoble campus includes 8500 square meters of cleanroom space. Spinning Off Technology LETI's goal is anything but research for research's sake. If no company exists to handle a new technology, then spin-off companies are started. He says this spin-off approach is rare in Europe, adding that LETI is the only French research center with this policy. Soitec still makes its Unibond wafers inside the LETI fab, although the company's new facility near Grenoble is slated to begin production in the third quarter of 1998.
People are also an important component of the technology transfer process.
LETI's evaluations of new equipment and suppliers, like this Opal CD-SEM, are relayed to its industrial partners. We are not promoting it for current applications because wafer logistics are not really advanced enough to integrate the concept. Research in SOI wafer bonding and deep-UV lithography are two other areas where LETI researchers are dealing with the challenge of molecular contamination. For the SOI Unibond Smart Cut bonding process to be successful, contaminants must be completely removed from between the layers or they could show up later in the process, explains department manager Therme. Green-colored boxes store wafers for copper metallization work.