Honeywell to Invest in Nanotech

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 11 -- Honeywell announced today it will invest at least $5 million over five years in equipment and research at Albany NanoTech, a New York State center for nanotechnology. Honeywell will locate laboratories and researchers at the center to work on next-generation materials for the semiconductor industry.

The company will focus on developing metal precursors and other materials related to atomic layer deposition (ALD), a semiconductor manufacturing technique that deposits a single layer on a chip that is only one atom or one molecule thick. ALD technology is essential as chips become increasingly smaller. Honeywell said it will also concentrate its efforts on next-generation high-k dielectrics.

Saket Chadda, CTO of Honeywell Electronic Materials, said, "This investment will allow us to continue to develop new materials critical to continuing the relentless pace of circuit miniaturization."

Honeywell Electronic Materials develops technology in dielectrics, metals, interconnect packaging solutions, optoelectronic materials and electronic chemicals.

Albany NanoTech is a research, development and prototyping pilot manufacturing and education resource that manages laboratories, supercomputer and shared-user facilities and a variety of research centers located at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Its first research center, the New York State Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology, was established in 1993. The center is also home to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and the New York State Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics. The complex houses the only user-shared, 228,000-square-foot, 300-mm wafer class 1 facility in the world and encompasses nanoelectronics, system-on-a-chip technologies, biochips, optoelectronics and photonics devices, closed-loop sensors and ultrahigh-speed communication components.

For more information, visit: www.honeywell.com/em/