Major technological milestone in CNF-MIM capacitor development

Smoltek Semi has togeth­er with SkyTech, a Tai­wanese leader in Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) equip­ment for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, suc­cess­ful­ly engi­neered an advanced dielec­tric stack com­posed of zir­co­ni­um oxide (ZrO₂) and alu­mini­um oxide (Al₂O₃) that has result­ed in a capac­i­tance den­si­ty in excess of 1 µF/​mm².

The joint devel­op­ment effort, which began at the start of the year, focused on the opti­miza­tion and eval­u­a­tion of ALD films deposit­ed by SkyTech on Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary CNF-MIM (Car­bon Nanofiber–Metal-Insulator-Metal) test capac­i­tor struc­tures. The result is a capac­i­tance den­si­ty in excess of 1 µF/​mm² using an active lay­er thick­ness of only 6 µm—corresponding to a vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty exceed­ing 160 nF/m­m²-µm, which is among the high­est report­ed vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty for ultra-thin capac­i­tors in the industry.

“Break­ing the 1 µF/​mm² bar­ri­er is a major mile­stone for us,” says Dr. Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek. “Our long-term invest­ment in ALD process devel­op­ment is clear­ly bear­ing fruit, and SkyTech’s advanced ALD tech­nol­o­gy has been instru­men­tal in reach­ing this record-break­ing performance.”

Smotek Semi has now set its focus is to tran­si­tion this break­through from the lab to prod­uct-lev­el pro­to­types, with an empha­sis on improv­ing yield and improv­ing insu­la­tion resistance.

“We are excit­ed to sup­port Smoltek in push­ing the bound­aries of capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy,” says George Yi, CEO of SkyTech. “Our col­lab­o­ra­tion is a great exam­ple of how com­bin­ing mate­ri­als inno­va­tion with advanced ALD process con­trol can unlock entire­ly new per­for­mance lev­els. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our work togeth­er as Smoltek moves towards prod­uct integration.”

Read the offi­cial press release here: Smoltek Sur­pass­es 1 Micro­farad per Square Mil­lime­ter Capac­i­tance Mile­stone – Prov­ing Com­mer­cial Readiness