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Gallium nitride (GaN) is fi nally giving silicon a run for its money for use in power transistors capable of switching hundreds of volts. What has changed? Until now, GaN fabrication processes were simply cost prohibitive. Researchers at Leti are on the verge of overcoming cost concerns with their recent 650 V “normally-on” transistor, fabricated […] >>

In R&D conducted under the EU ML2 (MultiLayer MicroLab) project, Leti recently transferred a process to Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute that functionalizes long spools (over 100 meters) of PMMA plastic sheets by grafting biological molecules onto the material. Oxygen plasma treatment is used to modify the plastic’s surface, and then contactless printing is used to graft […] >>

Leti’s M&NEMS technology just keeps on giving, this time in the form of a pressure sensor that is as accurate as the best available capacitive sensors, and even more powerful in terms of linearity and insensitivity to parasite capacities. The sensor can be coupled with M&NEMS accelerometers, gyrometers, and magnetometers on a single chip that […] >>

It is generally accepted that the thermal conductivity of a crystalline material is lowest when the material is in its amorphous form. Researchers from INAC and LiPhy* recently used numerical simulation to show that thermal conductivity could be reduced two- or even three-fold by organizing the crystalline material in super-networks—which means stacking nanostructured multilayers in […] >>

The porosity—and detection capabilities—of chemical and biochemical sensors’ sensitive layers can be improved using a newly developed technique called foaming, where the sensitive layer, covered with a sacrifi cial layer, is annealed. The gases released as a result of the increase in temperature are trapped in the thin layer, causing it to swell—and creating more […] >>