Archer Materials Limited, a semiconductor company advancing the quantum technology and medical diagnostics industries, has fabricated one of its Biochip graphene field effect transistor (“gFET”) designs through a six-inch whole wafer run by its foundry partner in Spain, Graphenea.
Archer’s gFET chips fabricated on a whole six-inch wafer by Graphenea. The fabrication of Archer’s specialized gFET designs on a six-inch wafer is an advancement in the context of Archer’s Biochip research and development progress, representing an intermediary, gradual scaling, in the potential fabrication capacity and efficiency over the typical four-inch wafers used by Archer in its Biochip technology development. Image Credit: Archer Materials Limited
Archer had sent the Biochip gFET design to Graphenea for fabrication through a whole wafer run in Dec 20231. The gFETs are designed with structures suitable for liquid multiplexing, with advances in chip design features, including in gating design and materials, to address technological challenges in maintaining graphene device stability from chip-to-chip.
The process run was performed on a six-inch whole wafer, making it the first six-inch wafer run for Archer. The fabrication produced 145 chips with eight gFET devices on each chip. Archer confirmed the gFETs performed as expected electronically, with the required stability observed in the Dirac point within the desired testing measurements’ voltage range.
This latest achievement builds on earlier gFET design fabrication milestones, including a multi-project wafer run with a German foundry (ASX ann. 9 Nov 2023), and a whole four-inch wafer run at a foundry in the Netherlands (ASX ann. 14 Sept 2023). Archer also recently advanced its Biochip gFET chip design with a significant reduction in size, with the miniaturized chip designs sent for fabrication to a foundry partner in the Netherlands (ASX ann. 11 Mar 2024).
Commenting on the gFET fabrication, Dr Mohammad Choucair, CEO of Archer, said,
“Archer has demonstrated its specialized gFET designs can be fabricated through a whole six-inch wafer run. By performing these types of wafer runs, including in Graphenea’s commercial graphene foundry, Archer aims to optimize its gFET designs, performance, and readiness for compatibility with the advanced fabrication processes and equipment needed to potentially produce gFET chips at scale.”