STTR Phase II: Miniature Precision Stage for High Throughput Hybrid Bonding

Abstracts are a public record of active and expired awards and are an important source of information on NSF activities. The purpose of the Abstract is to describe the project and justify the expenditure of Federal funds. Abstracts must not contain inappropriate or confidential information, and because they are available to such a wide audience, high standards of quality must be maintained in preparing them. The NSF award abstract has two parts, which should appear in the following order: -Part 1: A nontechnical description of the project, which explains the project's significance and importance. This description also serves as a public justification for NSF funding by articulating how the project serves the national interest, as stated by NSF's mission: to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare; or to secure the national defense. This part of the abstract should describe the fundamental issues the project seeks to address, as well as other potential benefits, such as how the project advances the field, supports education and diversity, or benefits society. This part should be understandable by a broad audience. -Part 2: A technical description of the project that states its goals and scope, the methods and approaches to be used, and its potential contribution. In many cases, the technical project description may be a modified version of the project summary that is submitted with the proposal. However, the technical description should reflect any changes in the project's goals made after the review process. -Part 3: The Statement of Merit Review, "This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria." This statement is non-editable and added to every proposal Abstract once it has been saved in eJacket. This statement is viewable after the Abstract has been saved, and is read-only. Upon award of a proposal, the Abstract is available in the Award Search application and via FastLane. The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to develop the key technology to enable the building of high-precision, high-throughput, semiconductor advanced packaging systems to enable broad adoption of the 3D integration of chiplets for next generation high-performance computing. With the rapid increase in the need for computing power associated with artificial intelligence development, self-driving cars, and next generation mobile devices, the semiconductor industry is transitioning to integrate semiconductor devices in 3D. This technology will extend the growth curve known as Moore’s Law beyond the limit of packing additional transistors onto individual chips. This project may also demonstrate the general feasibility of microhydraulic actuator technology, paving way for its development and applications in other fields of robotics. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project seeks to control electronics and design protocols to reach 100 nm in position accuracy in the design of semiconductor advanced packaging systems. The high-speed position stage will be based on the microhydraulic actuator technology and provide an improvement of 100x over the as designed step size. The team will develop the necessary electronics, hardware, control software, and measurement techniques to achieve the position accuracy, while maintaining the high responsiveness of the microhydraulic actuator. The plan includes assembling test actuators, developing and testing the control hardware and software, as well as establishing the capabilities of position measurement systems based on charge control, capacitance feedback and optical image feedback. The team will use these measurement systems to assess the movement accuracy and precision of the actuator and its control system. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.