INDUSTRY NEWS

In its wake

A mass-flow controller, as most MICRO readers know, is a small self-contained device for regulating the flow of gases used in semiconductor manufacturing and other thin-film processes. The Wake Shield Facility reactor, covered in these pages but perhaps less well known, is the first platform for growing epitaxial thin-film materials in low Earth orbit. The WSF creates an ultravacuum of >10^-13 torr in its wake, and there are no chamber walls in space to corral contaminants. After detaching from the Space Shuttle Columbia last year, the WSF grew seven epitaxial III-V compound device structures by molecular beam epitaxy. MKS Instruments, a purveyor of gas-management instruments, says that accomplishment was aided in no small part by its Type 1640 MFC.

Unlike thermal-based counterparts, the MKS controller is a pressure-based instrument that provides the purity and deposition control needed for growing epitaxial thin-film structures being developed by the WSF for next-generation ICs. By eliminating the need for a carrier gas, the pressure-based MFC delivers precise amounts of pure gallium and indium precursors.

The flight was the third one sponsored by the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center at the University of Houston. MKS, a center member, says a fourth flight is under consideration that would enable growth of more samples, with commercial development on the horizon.

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