A new photolithography stepper will be installed in a £120m cleanroom at the University of Southampton, replacing a slower electron beam tool that currently creates a bottleneck for fabricating semiconductor devices. This matters because the UK lacks a dedicated silicon photonics fabrication capability. Silicon photonics uses standard chip-manufacturing techniques to build devices that manipulate light rather than electricity, enabling faster data transmission with lower power consumption. Worldwide foundries are moving toward standardised platforms that make it harder for researchers to experiment with novel device designs. The new stepper, combined with resources from Southampton, Glasgow, and Surrey universities, will create a shared national capability that keeps UK researchers competitive. If successful, the capability will allow academic and industrial users—including ten project partners contributing £793,300 in-kind—to fabricate custom silicon photonics devices. This could improve optical communications, data centre interconnects, and sensing systems that underpin modern infrastructure. The equipment will be sustained beyond the four-year project through the universities’ commercial arms, with Southampton users needing only 0.2% of their research portfolio to cover running costs.
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This proposal seeks funding to acquire a stepper and associated wafer coater, tools to enable photolithographic patterning of semiconductor wafers for device and circuit fabrication. The stepper will be located at Southampton University in the recent £120m cleanroom complex. It will relieve the bottleneck within the cleanroom, an electron beam lithography tool, which is a slower alternative patterning tool. This will increase capacity within the cleanroom complex and facilitate and underpin a wealth of world class research. Not only will research at Southampton be enhanced, but Southampton (SOU), Glasgow (GLA), and Surrey (SUR) universities will pool resources to establish a Silicon Photonics Fabrication Capability within the UK, to facilitate an increasing demand for the fabrication of Silicon Photonics devices from the UK's premier researchers. This will encourage wider usage of world class equipment within the UK, in line with EPSRC policy. We seek funding for both the equipment and 3.5 RAs across the 3 institutions, over a 4 year period, to establish and deliver the Capability. Access to a very significant inventory of additional equipment at these 3 universities will be facilitated. The Capability is extremely timely, as silicon foundry services around the world are moving towards a model in which standard platforms and devices will be offered, making it more difficult for researchers to carry out innovative work at the device level, or in non-standard platforms. The proposal is supported by 36 members of academic staff at Southampton, with a total current research portfolio of projects valued in excess of £88m. Furthermore we have 10 project partners who will take part in the use and assessment of the silicon photonics capability by designing and subsequently testing fabricated devices. Their total in-kind contribution is valued at £793,300. These partners have expressed an interest in using the capability after the project has been completed. In addition we have contacted a few example potential users from within the industrial sector (SMEs), and from around the world who have also provided letters of support indicating that they would use the capability after the project is complete. Taking this net proposed usage, it is clear that the equipment will be sustained beyond the period of the funded project. The Southampton users alone need only generate a tiny fraction (0.2%) of their research portfolio to cover running costs and depreciation. Consumables will increase with usage, but clearly, the silicon photonics capability will generate paying users, to further sustain the capability beyond the project, which will, in turn, allow UK researchers to compete effectively on the world stage in the buoyant field of silicon photonics. Beyond the 4 year project, the Silicon Photonics Capability will be operated by the commercial arms of the 3 partner universities, all of whom have provided letters of support confirming their ongoing participation.
Douglas Paul (Co-Investigator)Frederic Gardes (Co-Investigator)Goran Mashanovich (Co-Investigator)Graham Reed (Principal Investigator)Harold Chong (Co-Investigator)Jonathan England (Co-Investigator)Marc Sorel (Co-Investigator)Philip Arthur Nelson (Co-Investigator)Russell Gwilliam (Co-Investigator)
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