Millisecond processing beyond chip technology: From electronics to photonics

There is a clear and increasing interest in short time annealing processing far below one second, i.e. the lower limit of Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) called spike annealing. This was driven by the need of suppressing the so-called Transient Enhanced Diffusion in advanced boronimplanted shallow pn-junctions in silicon technology. Meanwhile the interest in flash lamp annealing (FLA) in the millisecond range spread out into other fields related to silicon technology and beyond. This paper reports on recent experiments regarding shallow junction engineering in germanium, annealing of ITO layers on glass and plastic foil to form an conductive layer as well as investigations which we did during the last years in the field of wide band gap semiconductor materials (SiC, ZnO). A more common feature evolving from our work was related to the modeling of wafer stress during millisecond thermal processing with flash lamps. Finally recent achievements in the field of silicon-based light emission basing on Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Light Emitting Devices will be reported. © 2007 IEEE.

Technology management - Structuring the strategic dialogue

Successful innovation requires effective communication within and between technical and nontechnical communities, which can be challenging due to different educational backgrounds, experience, perceptions, and attitudes. Roadmapping has emerged as a method that can enable effective dialogue between these groups, and the way in which information is structured is a key feature that enables this communication. This is an area that has not received much attention in the literature, and this article seeks to address this gap by describing in detail the structures that have been successfully applied in roadmapping workshops and processes, from which key learning points and future research directions are identified.

Technology confidence in early stage development of medical devices

Innovation is a critical factor in ensuring commercial success within the area of medical technology. Biotechnology and Healthcare developments require huge financial and resource investment, in-depth research and clinical trials. Consequently, these developments involve a complex multidisciplinary structure, which is inherently full of risks and uncertainty. In this context, early technology assessment and 'proof of concept' is often sporadic and unstructured. Existing methodologies for managing the feasibility stage of medical device development are predominantly suited to the later phases of development and favour detail in optimisation, validation and regulatory approval. During these early phases, feasibility studies are normally conducted to establish whether technology is potentially viable. However, it is not clear how this technology viability is currently measured. This paper aims to redress this gap through the development of a technology confidence scale, as appropriate explicitly to the feasibility phase of medical device design. These guidelines were developed from analysis of three recent innovation studies within the medical device industry.

Evidence of print gap airflow affecting web printing quality

The current study extends our earlier investigation on the real-time dynamics of print gap airflow around a single jetted drop over a moving substrate. In the present work, simulated web press printing was performed using a stationary grey-scale commercial inkjet print head to print full-width block of solid colour images onto a paper substrate with extended print gaps. The resultant printed images exhibit patterns or 'wood-graining' effects which become more prevalent as the relevant Reynolds number (Re) increases. The high-resolution scans of the printed images revealed that the patterns are created by oscillation and coalescence of neighboring printed tracks across the web. The phenomenon could be a result of drop stream perturbations caused by unsteady print gap airflow of the type similar to that observed in the previous study. ©2013; Society for Imaging Science and Technology.