SUNY Poly CNSE, Inficon to partner on nanoelectronics industry R&D, create 50 jobs

ALBANY, N.Y. — SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (SUNY Poly CNSE) and Inficon, Inc. have announced plans for a research and development (R&D) partnership on advanced semiconductor-manufacturing technology that could lead to 50 jobs.

Switzerland–based Inficon has local operations at 2 Technology Place in DeWitt.

The two-year R&D agreement will leverage SUNY Poly CNSE’s capabilities and Inficon’s “in-situ” monitoring technologies that are enabling the “smart factories” of the future with real time, nanoscale-process control, Albany–based SUNY Poly CNSE said in a news release issued Monday.

The partnership will also formally launch a new advanced-manufacturing performance (AMP) center “dedicated to the component, sub-system and site-service companies that support the advanced-manufacturing processes in a broad array of industries,” according to the release.

The school expects the AMP center to result in the creation of 50 jobs.

The center will leverage the operations at the NanoTech Albany complex, while expanding to the computer-chip commercialization center (QUAD-C) in Marcy.

The AMP center will include R&D capabilities, which will also support new advanced-manufacturing operations that Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced, SUNY Poly CNSE said.

Reaction

“Inficon and CNSE have enjoyed a long relationship and this agreement marks a new level of collaboration with one of the world’s leading innovation companies located just 30 minutes away from SUNY Poly’s Marcy campus that is expanding its operations in the New York NanoTech corridor today. We look forward to our collaboration with Inficon and enabling the continued growth of New York’s burgeoning nanoelectronics industry,” Michael Fancher, executive director of the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Nanoelectronics and Nanomaterials (CATN2), said in the SUNY Poly CNSE release.

The demands on the nanoelectronics industry are “increasing rapidly” and it is “vital that we continue to build” our sensing and analysis capabilities, Peter Maier, president of Inficon Inc., said.

“SUNY Poly CNSE is a critical enabling resource in catalyzing new research and development, not just due to its world-class facilities and personnel, but also its ability to foster partnerships between state government, the private sector and New York state’s top-flight universities and research institutions,” said Maier. “With our recent expansion in Syracuse, Inficon has grown its local workforce to 260 and is excited to launch this partnership to advance the development of next generation sensor technologies.”

Inficon is a provider of instrumentation, sensor technologies, and advanced-process control software. The semiconductor research and development partnership with SUNY Poly CNSE will “characterize” precursor and/or byproduct compounds containing phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, gallium, and/or indium that may evolve from the surface of wafers during and/or following various processes throughout the semiconductor-manufacturing sequence.

It’ll also identify and develop methods for “detecting and analyzing” such compounds, and “improve and develop” sensor technologies and equipment that “embody or incorporate such methods,” the release stated.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com