Daw Technologies continues active involvement in expansion and servicing of Scottish Microelectronics Centre
Daw Technologies has announced the continuation of long-term maintenance services for the specialist clean room facilities at the Scottish Microelectronics Centre (SMC).
Daw was chosen to build the centre three years ago and has been closely involved with all subsequent expansions.
Iain Hyslop, chief executive of the SMC, commented: "We are hoping to extend our clean room facilities significantly and Daw will be among the front runners for this latest expansion phase.
We act as a business incubator for small and medium sized semiconductor firms, removing entry barriers to the marketplace.
The central belt of Scotland has a high concentration of electronics companies and we exist to grow more from the Scottish knowledgebase and beyond.
With more space, we could house up to ten young companies working in the micro and nano fields.
Companies which would have a knock-on effect on the local and national economy, and create an innovation melting pot." The centre is a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise National and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian.
University research staff play a key role within the centre, operating the cleanrooms and equipment and helping to provide the support and infrastructure required by SMEs.
Micro Emissive Displays (MED) is the facility's largest occupant.
Jeff Wright, MED's technical director, explained: "Our organic light emitting diode displays require specialist tools.
An example is the vacuum deposition cluster tool, which allows us to build and encapsulate our OLED displays on an 8" silicon wafer.
Such tools require the specialist provision of gases, water and electricity.
Daw came recommended to us and have proved to be both flexible and helpful." MED has developed a process to build a low cost, full colour micro-display the size of a postage stamp with low power consumption.
It consists of a light emitting polymer over a CMOS back plane, giving the display the same resolution as a good computer screen.
In the future, the company expects to install volume manufacturing facilities for this process, as well as develop further innovative processes.
John Langan, general manager of Daw Process Systems, said: "The development of the SMC and Daw has gone hand-in-hand.
We were chosen originally because of our proven track record within the semiconductor cleanroom market in Scotland, but our growth into clean room services and UHP sector has exactly matched their requirements. We are proud of what we have achieved at the SMC since its inception and are excited by the prospect of our involvement in their plans for the future."
