Public Funding for Semimetrics Limited

It is too late for the UK to achieve leadership in the already mature silicon CMOS industry. The costs to attempt this are prohibitive. However, many UK based companies have already achieved technical leadership in compound, organic and 2D semiconductors. These leaders are targeting emerging high-growth and high-volume applications. In the next years these companies will have a major impact on the UK economy, society, productivity, health, environment, and climate. We believe the UK must engage and encourage _specifically these manufacturers_ to ensure they base their future high-volume automated manufacturing in the UK, improve their productivity and scale-up production. The Silicon Valley experience shows one factor to success is a local "ecosystem" of innovative SME's developing new tools, materials, processes, and metrology for the high-volume manufacturers. Our company is one of those suppliers and we believe that the "Transformative Technologies Competition" is an excellent instrument to deliver the required support exactly where it is needed and at the right time. SemiMetrics Ltd needs funding to undertake a feasibility study to verify the performance of an innovative new metrology method and to determine its worldwide market potential. The new metrology product would offer significant benefits to manufacturers of new advanced semiconductors based in the UK and abroad, targeting new high-growth, high-volume applications. Working with ten of these strategic UK based manufacturers SemiMetrics Ltd will determine the applicability of the new metrology idea to each of these applications and determine the impact and value of the new metrology concept on yield improvement and lowering costs. This is our contribution scale-up in manufacturing by increasing productivity and thus competitiveness. SemiMetrics Ltd will also, from the results of this UK based study, be able to calculate the available world market for the new metrology equipment and protect its IP. The new metrology determines, in real-time, the key electrical properties of a semiconductor without making any physical contact. This means that the manufacturer can test the actual semiconductor product in-line rather than testing samples from "time to time". Monitoring of the semiconductor films during production enables better statistical process control guiding continuous improvement and faster optimization of the process. This will in turn result in cost savings and improved product quality for the semiconductor manufacturers. Reduced material waste directly impacts manufacturing sustainability and reduces the impact of volume manufacturing on the environment.