Oregon-based scientific instruments maker FEI and CEA-Leti, a French government-funded technological research organization, signed a three-year agreement to characterize advanced semiconductor materials for the 22-nm technology node and beyond, the companies announced this week. CEA-Leti, working with its partners on the MINATEC micro- and nanotechnology innovation campus based in Grenoble, will apply its expertise in holography to improve the sensitivity of dopant profiling, while FEI will provide advanced nanobeam diffraction technology to measure changes in strain and other crystallographic parameters with its Titan scanning transmission electron microscope (S/TEM). The goal is to advance the technology past critical technical roadbacks facing the semiconductor industry as it tries to push integrated circuit devices past the 22-nm barrier. For more information, visit: www.fei.com or www.leti.fr/en