- Company - Physik Instrumente (PI) GmbH & Co. KG
EU-Funded Project 14ACMOS: PI Contributes to Technology Node Development for Semiconductor Manufacturing
High-end microchips manufactured using 3 nm technology are the current state of the art. Production technologies for the 2 nm technology node are expected to be available as early as next year and for 1.4 nm, i.e., 14 angstroms, by 2027. The 95-million-euro research project 14ACMOS is co-funded by the European Union and supported by the “Joint Undertaking for Chips” (Chips JU). It brings together the know-how and development expertise of Europe's leading suppliers to the semiconductor industry. The project, which involves twenty-five partners from six countries, is coordinated by ASML, the Dutch world leader in lithography systems for semiconductor manufacturing.
PI has been a system partner to the semiconductor industry for decades and is represented worldwide with positioning systems in a wide range of areas of semiconductor production. In areas such as lithography and metrology for quality control, the nanopositioning specialist's products are already in use. The positioning systems to be developed as part of the 14ACMOS project must also function precisely and highly dynamically under vacuum conditions in order to be economically viable.
The angstrom scale is often used to describe atomic distances. One angstrom is equal to one ten millionth of a millimeter or 0.1 nanometers (nm). For comparison: A human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick.
More information about the project
About Physik Instrumente (PI) GmbH & Co. KG
PI with headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany, is the market and technology leader for high-precision positioning technology and piezo applications in the market segments of Industrial Automation, Photonics, Semiconductor, and Microscopy & Life Sciences. In close cooperation with international customers, PI’s approximately 1,500 specialists have been continuously pushing the boundaries of what is technically possible for more than fifty years. Various drive technologies, internally developed sensor technology, electronics, and control technology provide the basis for this. PI’s portfolio ranges from components to subsystems to tailor-made complete solutions. 508 granted and pending patents underline the company's claim to leadership in the fields of precision positioning and piezo technology. PI operates on a global scale, with nine production sites in Europe, North America, and Asia, as well as sixteen sales and service subsidiaries.