The Center of Nanofabrication at Tsinghua University is an open, university-level experiment platform for multi-objective research and teaching. It serves all research and teaching units at Tsinghua, and is also open to the public. Aiming to support Tsinghua's goal of becoming a world-class university with Chinese characteristics, the center focuses on the technological forefront in the field of micro/nano fabrication. It is committed to creating fundamental, forward-looking, and unique original achievements, influential in both China and abroad, so as to become an open research, education, and practice center that can achieve significant breakthroughs.
While supporting national major projects and research needs with first-class, original achievements, the center also strives to nurture leading professionals specializing in micro and nanotechnology to serve China's workforce development strategy.
With the support of officials at all levels and the industry, the center has achieved rapid growth. With well-established, advanced soft and hard facilities, it has made rapid improvements to its processing and service quality. The center has an ultra-clean area of about 1,200 square meters and more than 30 technical professionals, offering 24/7 services to users on and off campus. Rapid development has led to an increase in the number of users year on year. The center has provided services to over 740 users, with about 31% coming from research institutions and companies outside the university campus.
With more than 200 pieces and sets of equipment, the center is capable of processing, testing, and packaging 4-inch wafers, with some equipment capable of processing 8-inch wafers. The center has a variety of high-performance equipment, including an electron-beam lithography machine capable of processing line widths of 10 nm; a multi-chamber thin film deposition and testing system; a deep silicon etcher with a high depth-to-breadth ratio; a He/Ne/Ga three-ion-beam microscope capable of performing microfabrication; and a 4D microscope capable of recording dynamic 3D morphology. The center also has a complete package of mainstream EDA softwares. Covering the entire process of circuit and device design, it provides a full set of design tools and verification systems, from system-level design to layout-level design. With strong hardware and software support, the center has developed multiple process modules for users, such as 3D grayscale lithography and etching, 2D materials growth and processing, microfluidic technology, and wafer-level packaging. In recent years, the center has exerted great influence in both academic and industrial fields by contributing to a number of remarkable research outcomes achieved by users from both inside and outside campus, including compute-in-memory chips based on RRAM and memristor arrays, artificial antiferromagnetic materials and devices, optical and electronic devices based on 2D materials, and diffractive optical devices.
In terms of student development, the center has long provided undergraduates with SRT and summer practice opportunities. It has helped schools and departments at Tsinghua open a number of experimental courses related to micro and nanofabrication and testing, encouraging students to operate advanced instruments and equipment to combine theory and practice.
The center has been playing an active role in supporting major national projects, such as the construction of several important platforms, including the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Platform for Intelligent Chips and Hardware, the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Integrated Circuits, and the Tsinghua National Innovation Platform for Industry-Education Integration in Integrated Circuits.
The center also values external cooperation and science popularization, winning many awards in external services and team building.
In the future, the center will create an increasingly advanced research environment, improve its management ability, and build a high-level professional team, making itself an open platform with world-leading soft and hard facilities for micro and nanotechnology sharing.
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