SPAM · Surface Physics for Advanced Manufacturing

Today, markets demand smaller, cheaper, energy friendly and more different consumer products. Last decades micro technology has opened possibilities for mobile communication, safety and health science products. To meet these demands, the industry is encountering technological barriers that prevent the industry from evolving from the micro to a nanotechnology era. To resolve these barriers, the industry and research institutes need to initiate research programmes, and need to structure and integrate its research programmes and transfer the knowledge that as been acquired in these programmes. “New” researchers have to be trained with excellent research skills, knowledge on the specific technology, and understanding of market demands, application development, and so on. For this purpose 4 industrial, 5 academic and 3 research institutes have defined the 4 year SPAM research and training program; “a Supra-disciplinary approach to research and training in surface Physics for Advanced Manufacturing - SPAM”. Research objectives are: • identify and develop crucial knowledge in the field of surface physics, • enable the manufacturing of smaller semi-conductors and hence technology to print under 32 nm; extreme positional accuracy (< 4 nm); at competitive cost, • use this knowledge to further develop lithography technologies/tools needed for cost efficient development of nano-electronic devices, including manufacturing processes. Training objectives are: • provide personalised individual training, in particular for 16 ESR but also for 6 ER, to prepare and optimise their research in SRTs, with the help of 9 VS. • provide a network-wide training, fully exploiting the network potential and complementarities, leading to 12 network events. • transfer existing knowledge between partners through the SRTs and to transfer newly gained knowledge. Meeting the objectives are the responsibility of 4 Supra-disciplinary Research Teams (SRT) and 5 interlinking Training Exchange Pools.