Queen's Advanced MicroEngineering Centre

Formally the NISRC, Queen's ADvanced Micro- Engineering Centre (QAMEC) is a centre of excellence for research and development employing silicon MEMS technology, FSS technology and novel device structures. In collboration with the High Frequency Electronics Group, the centre has established itself in tyhe design and fabrication of Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) for the Euopean Space Agency. Whilst primarily a MEMS facility, the facility offers support through technology transfer, training and collaborative enterprise to industry in new growth areas.

QAMEC's core equipment set can accomadate silicon processing  on various substrates, 50mm, 100mm diameter substrates and above, as well as offering the versatility of handling non-standard substrates such as Quartz, Sapphire and Germanium. For thin film work there is a wide range of PVD systems including dc and rf magnetron sputtering and EB evaporation. The Centre is set up as a versatile research laboratory rather than a dedicated IC production facility. This enables it to respond to an increasingly wide range of industrial needs.

The Centre has been at the forefront of direct silicon wafer bonding technology for the fabrication of silicon on insulator substrates (SOI) and was able to assist a start-up company for SOI substrates to become established. The Centre has also considerable expertise in Chemical Vapour Deposition of insulators, semiconductors and metals. This ranges from the deposition of polycrystalline silicon on glass for thin film transistor circuits to epitaxial growth of Si,Ge, for silicon HBTs.