Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    Samtec Expands Connector Severe Environment Testing Offering

    Silicon Capacitors Market: Shaping the Foundation for Next-Gen Miniaturization Electronics

    YAGEO Releases Compact Coupled Inductors for High-Density VR Designs

    Enhancing Energy Density in Nanocomposite Dielectric Capacitors

    Advances in the Environmental Performance of Polymer Capacitors

    Vishay Releases DLA Tantalum Polymer Capacitors for Military and Aerospace

    Vishay Expanded Inductor Portfolio With More Than 2000 Stock Items 

    Paumanok Releases Capacitor Foils Market Report 2025-2030

    Modelithics Welcomes CapV as a Sponsoring MVP

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Efficient Power Converters: Duty Cycle vs Conduction Losses

    Ripple Steering in Coupled Inductors: SEPIC Case

    SEPIC Converter with Coupled and Uncoupled Inductors

    Coupled Inductors in SEPIC versus Flyback Converters

    Non-Linear MLCC Class II Capacitor Measurements Challenges

    Percolation Phenomenon and Reliability of Molded Power Inductors in DC/DC converters

    Root Causes and Effects of DC Bias and AC in Ceramic Capacitors

    How to Calculate the Output Capacitor for a Switching Power Supply

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    Samtec Expands Connector Severe Environment Testing Offering

    Silicon Capacitors Market: Shaping the Foundation for Next-Gen Miniaturization Electronics

    YAGEO Releases Compact Coupled Inductors for High-Density VR Designs

    Enhancing Energy Density in Nanocomposite Dielectric Capacitors

    Advances in the Environmental Performance of Polymer Capacitors

    Vishay Releases DLA Tantalum Polymer Capacitors for Military and Aerospace

    Vishay Expanded Inductor Portfolio With More Than 2000 Stock Items 

    Paumanok Releases Capacitor Foils Market Report 2025-2030

    Modelithics Welcomes CapV as a Sponsoring MVP

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Efficient Power Converters: Duty Cycle vs Conduction Losses

    Ripple Steering in Coupled Inductors: SEPIC Case

    SEPIC Converter with Coupled and Uncoupled Inductors

    Coupled Inductors in SEPIC versus Flyback Converters

    Non-Linear MLCC Class II Capacitor Measurements Challenges

    Percolation Phenomenon and Reliability of Molded Power Inductors in DC/DC converters

    Root Causes and Effects of DC Bias and AC in Ceramic Capacitors

    How to Calculate the Output Capacitor for a Switching Power Supply

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
No Result
View All Result
Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result

Picosun’s ALD technology enables record capacitance density 1uF/mm2 by its 3D silicon-integrated microcapacitors

24.4.2020
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

ESPOO, Finland, Picosun Group, global provider of leading AGILE ALD® (Atomic Layer Deposition) thin film coating solutions, reports record performance of silicon-integrated, three-dimensional deep trench microcapacitors manufactured using its ALD technology.

Increasing efficiency and performance demands of portable and wearable electronics, along with their shrinking size in accordance with the Moore’s law, set new challenges to the power management of these devices as well. A solution is further integration of the devices’ key components into so-called SiP (systems-in-package) or SoC (systems-on-chip) architectures, where everything, including the energy storage such as batteries or capacitors, is packed close to each other into one compact, microscale-miniaturized assembly. This calls for novel techniques to increase the performance and shrink the size of the energy storage unit as well. Three-dimensional, high aspect ratio and large surface area deep trench microcapacitors where ultra-thin, alternating layers of conducting and insulating materials form the energy storing structure, provide a potential solution.

RelatedPosts

Samtec Expands Connector Severe Environment Testing Offering

Silicon Capacitors Market: Shaping the Foundation for Next-Gen Miniaturization Electronics

YAGEO Releases Compact Coupled Inductors for High-Density VR Designs

Featured Figure: Main technological steps of 3D microcapacitor fabrication. 1: patterning of a square lattice of holes on the silicon surface; 2: high aspect ratio trenching of silicon by electrochemical micromachining (ECM); 3: atomic layer deposition (ALD) of conformal metal-insulator-metal (MIM) stack; 4: aluminium deposition and contact patterning (*).

Picosun’s ALD technology has now realized unprecedented performance of these 3D microcapacitors. PICOSUN® ALD equipment were used to deposit film stacks of conductive TiN and insulating dielectric Al2O3 and HfAlO3 layers into high aspect ratio (up to 100) trenches etched into silicon. Up to 1 µF/mm2 areal capacitance was obtained, which is the new record for this capacitor type. Also power and energy densities, 566 W/cm2 and 1.7 µWh/cm2, were excellent and surpassing the values achieved with the most of the other capacitor technologies. The ALD microcapacitors showed also outstanding voltage and temperature stability, up to 16V and 100oC, over 100 hours continuous operation (*).

Figures above: b) SEM cross-section of an array of cylindrical trenches with a pitch of 4 μm, diameter of 2 μm and aspect ratio of 100, conformally coated with an ALD stack consisting of 40 nm of TiN, 40 nm of Al2O3, and 40 nm of TiN. Insets show a detail of the MIM stack at the top and bottom of a single trench; d) high-resolution TEM image of an MIM stack consisting of 40 nm of TiN, 40 nm of Al2O3, and 40 nm of TiN taken at the bottom of ALD-coated trenches with aspect ratio of 100; e) TEM-EDX elemental maps of Ti (yellow), N 14 (cyan), Al (red), and O (green) of the MIM stack in (d) (*).

These excellent performance indicators pave the way to industrial applications of this capacitor technology. This is further facilitated by ALD’s mature position in modern semiconductor industries, where the technology is already integrated into practically all advanced microchip component manufacturing lines.

“We exploited the room available on the bottom of silicon wafers, of which only a few micrometers of silicon are used for electronic components in integrated circuits, to fabricate silicon-integrated 3D microcapacitors with unprecedented areal capacitance. The electrochemical micromachining technology, developed at the University of Pisa over the past decade, enabled etching of high density trenches with aspect ratios up to 100 in silicon, a value otherwise not achievable with deep reactive ion etching. This posed the basis for increasing the areal capacitance of our 3D microcapacitors upon conformal coating with an ALD metal-insulator-metal stack,” says Prof. Giuseppe Barillaro, group leader at the Information Engineering Department of the University of Pisa, Italy.

“The suberb results achieved with our 3D silicon-integrated microcapacitors show again how imperative ALD technology is to modern microelectronics. We are happy that we can offer our unmatched expertise and decades of cumulative know-how in the field to develop novel solutions for the challenges the industry is facing, when the requirements for system performance and integration level increase inversely to the system size. The environmental aspect is also obvious, when smaller, more compact devices manufactured in the same line mean also smaller consumption of materials and energy,” says Juhana Kostamo, deputy CEO of Picosun Group.

Picosun provides the most advanced ALD thin film coating technology to enable the industrial leap into the future, with turn-key production solutions and unmatched expertise in the field. Today, PICOSUN® ALD equipment are in daily manufacturing use in numerous major industries around the world. Picosun is based in Finland, with subsidiaries in Germany, North America, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Japan, offices in India and France, and a world-wide sales and support network.

(*) “Three-dimensional silicon-integrated capacitor with unprecedented areal capacitance for on-chip energy storage”, Lucanos M. Strambinib,1, Alessandro Paghia,1, Stefano Mariania, Anjali Soodc, Jesse Kalliomäkic, Päivi Järvinenc, Fabrizio Toiad, Mario Scuratid, Marco Morellid, Alessio Lampertie, Giuseppe Barillaroa,b,∗, accepted for publication in Nano Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.104281.

a Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, via G. Caruso 16, 57122, Pisa, Italy
b Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni, Consiglio nazionale delle Ricerche, via G. Caruso 16, 57122, Pisa, Italy
c Picosun Oy, Tietotie 3, Espoo, FI-02150, Finland
d ST Microelectronics, via Olivetti 1, Agrate Brianza, Italy
e IMM-CNR, Unit of Agrate Brianza, Via C. Olivetti 2, 20864, Agrate Brianza, MB, Italy

(Funding from the ECSEL Joint Undertaking through the R2POWER300 project, grant no. 653933)

Related

Source: Picosun

Recent Posts

Silicon Capacitors Market: Shaping the Foundation for Next-Gen Miniaturization Electronics

10.10.2025
9

Enhancing Energy Density in Nanocomposite Dielectric Capacitors

9.10.2025
15

Advances in the Environmental Performance of Polymer Capacitors

8.10.2025
32

Vishay Releases DLA Tantalum Polymer Capacitors for Military and Aerospace

8.10.2025
15

Paumanok Releases Capacitor Foils Market Report 2025-2030

7.10.2025
16

Modelithics Welcomes CapV as a Sponsoring MVP

7.10.2025
3

Benefits of Tantalum Powder Stress–Strain Curve Evaluation vs Conventional Wet Test

3.10.2025
23

Electrolyte Selection and Performance in Supercapacitors

3.10.2025
31

Researchers Demonstrated High Energy Ceramic Capacitors Stable in Wide Temperature Range

2.10.2025
24

How to Manage Supercapacitors Leakage Current and Self Discharge 

1.10.2025
44

Upcoming Events

Oct 14
16:00 - 17:00 CEST

Smart Sensors, Smarter AI: Building Reliable Edge Systems

Oct 17
12:00 - 14:00 EDT

External Visual Inspection per MIL-STD-883 TM 2009

Oct 20
October 20 - October 23

Digital WE Days 2025 – Virtual Conference

Oct 21
October 21 @ 12:00 - October 23 @ 14:15 EDT

Space and Military Standards for Hybrids and RF Microwave Modules

Oct 28
8:00 - 15:00 CET

Power Up Your Design: SN6507 and the Ready-to-Use Development Kit

View Calendar

Popular Posts

  • Buck Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Boost Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Flyback Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • LLC Resonant Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is a Dielectric Constant and DF of Plastic Materials?

    4 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 0
  • SEPIC Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Dual Active Bridge (DAB) Topology Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Ripple Current and its Effects on the Performance of Capacitors

    3 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 0
  • MLCC and Ceramic Capacitors

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Flying Capacitors Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter Subscription

 

Passive Components Blog

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • EPCI Membership & Advertisement
  • About

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Premium Suppliers

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Go to mobile version