Academic literature on the topic 'Low effective mass channel material transistors'

Thin film transistors (TFTs) have enabled the active matrix displays that are a ubiquitous part of everyday life, from mobile phones and tablets through to desktop monitors and home televisions. They are used in the circuit at each pixel over the display as they can be fabricated for relatively low cost with excellent uniformity at low temperatures over large areas on glass substrates. These pixel circuits only require either n-channel or p-channel enhancement mode TFTs. However, there has long been a desire to integrate the display driver electronics onto the display panel as an alternative to connecting silicon-based integrated circuits using complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) field effect transistors (FETs) to displays. More recently, there has been an increasing interest in producing other logic circuits using TFTs on glass and plastic substrates as this could enable a new generation of products with embedded electronics. However, both of these applications need low power logic circuits. CMOS is an inherently low power technology, but it requires both n-channel and p-channel transistors. Whilst this can be realised in silicon CMOS FETs, it has not yet been achieved using TFTs because it has proved difficult to realise both n-channel and p-channel devices using one material system at low cost. For example, hydrogenated amorphous silicon can be used to make reasonable n-type material but not p-type. Thin film oxide semiconductors such as amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide have been successfully commercialised in the pixel circuits of active matrix displays as they possess high field effect mobility, low threshold voltage, low off-state current and a high switching ratio. There is therefore a lot of interest in finding a suitable complementary p-type metal oxide thin film material to allow CMOS-type logic to be realised using this material system. Cuprous oxide is one such promising candidate material as the top of the valence band is dominated by states which form as a result of hybridisation of the completely filled Cu 3d orbitals and the O 2p orbitals. These hybridised states are less localised and have a higher dispersion with a resulting decrease in the effective mass of holes in these states and a higher carrier mobility. The results of an extensive study of this material shows that the grain structure is of critical importance with [100] oriented films resulting in a higher mobility. Furthermore, the impact of grain boundaries on conduction must be controlled. Although this allows TFTs with reasonable on-state current to be fabricated, it is found that there is a significant residual off-state current which is a result of electron accumulation in the channel. This is consistent with the high off-state current that has been observed widely in TFTs using p-type metal oxide thin film materials. The low off-state current in silicon MOSFETs means that the geometric transistor design in low power CMOS logic circuits only needs to focus on the effect of the on-state current in the p-channel and n-channel transistors. However, in TFTs, the much larger off-state current also becomes important as it can end up being a significant parameter when calculating the power consumption of CMOS logic circuits. An alternative geometric design parameter for TFT logic circuits is presented. This compares the maximum switching current with the static currents allowing optimisation based on both the noise margin and static power consumption. The result is improved performance of TFT-based CMOS logic circuits using the n- and p-type thin film oxide semiconductors that are currently available.

High-performance p-type thin-film transistors (pTFTs) are crucial for realizing low-power display-on-panel and monolithic three-dimensional integrated circuits. Unfortunately, it is difficult to achieve a high hole mobility of greater than 10 cm2/V·s, even for SnO TFTs with a unique single-hole band and a small hole effective mass. In this paper, we demonstrate a high-performance GeSn pTFT with a high field-effect hole mobility (μFE), of 41.8 cm2/V·s; a sharp turn-on subthreshold slope (SS), of 311 mV/dec, for low-voltage operation; and a large on-current/off-current (ION/IOFF) value, of 8.9 × 106. This remarkably high ION/IOFF is achieved using an ultra-thin nanosheet GeSn, with a thickness of only 7 nm. Although an even higher hole mobility (103.8 cm2/V·s) was obtained with a thicker GeSn channel, the IOFF increased rapidly and the poor ION/IOFF (75) was unsuitable for transistor applications. The high mobility is due to the small hole effective mass of GeSn, which is supported by first-principles electronic structure calculations.

This work reports the first nanocrystalline SnON (7.6% nitrogen content) nanosheet n-type Field-Effect Transistor (nFET) with the transistor’s effective mobility (µeff) as high as 357 and 325 cm2/V-s at electron density (Qe) of 5 × 1012 cm−2 and an ultra-thin body thickness (Tbody) of 7 nm and 5 nm, respectively. At the same Tbody and Qe, these µeff values are significantly higher than those of single-crystalline Si, InGaAs, thin-body Si-on-Insulator (SOI), two-dimensional (2D) MoS2 and WS2. The new discovery of a slower µeff decay rate at high Qe than that of the SiO2/bulk-Si universal curve was found, owing to a one order of magnitude lower effective field (Eeff) by more than 10 times higher dielectric constant (κ) in the channel material, which keeps the electron wave-function away from the gate-oxide/semiconductor interface and lowers the gate-oxide surface scattering. In addition, the high µeff is also due to the overlapped large radius s-orbitals, low 0.29 mo effective mass (me*) and low polar optical phonon scattering. SnON nFETs with record-breaking µeff and quasi-2D thickness enable a potential monolithic three-dimensional (3D) integrated circuit (IC) and embedded memory for 3D biological brain-mimicking structures.

It has been challenging to synthesize p-type SnOx (1≤x<2) and engineer the electrical properties such as carrier density and mobility due to the narrow processing window and the localized oxygen 2p orbitals near the valence band. We recently reported on the processing of p-type SnOx and an oxide-based p-n heterostructures, demonstrating high on/off rectification ratio (>103), small turn-on voltage (<0.5 V), and low saturation current (~1×10-10 A)1. In order to further understand the p-type oxide and engineer the properties for various electronic device applications, it is important to identify (or establish) the dominating doping and transport mechanisms. The low dopability in p-type SnOx, of which the causation is also closely related to the narrow processing window, needs to be mitigated so that the electrical properties of the material are to be adequately engineered 2, 3. Herein, we report on the multifunctional encapsulation of p-SnOx to limit the surface adsorption of oxygen and selectively permeate hydrogen into the p-SnOx channel for thin film transistor (TFT) applications. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements identified that ultra-thin SiO2 as a multifunctional encapsulation layer effectively suppressed the oxygen adsorption on the back channel surface of p-SnOx and augmented hydrogen density across the entire thickness of the channel. Encapsulated p-SnOx-based TFTs demonstrated much-enhanced channel conductance modulation in response to the gate bias applied, featuring higher on-state current and lower off-state current. The relevance between the TFT performance and the effects of oxygen suppression and hydrogen permeation is discussed in regard to the intrinsic and extrinsic doping mechanisms. These results are supported by density-functional-theory calculations. Acknowledgement This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Award No. ECCS-1931088. S.L. and H.W.S. acknowledge the support from the Improvement of Measurement Standards and Technology for Mechanical Metrology (Grant No. 20011028) by KRISS. K.N. was supported by Basic Science Research Program (NRF-2021R11A1A01051246) through the NRF Korea funded by the Ministry of Education. References Lee, D. H.; Park, H.; Clevenger, M.; Kim, H.; Kim, C. S.; Liu, M.; Kim, G.; Song, H. W.; No, K.; Kim, S. Y.; Ko, D.-K.; Lucietto, A.; Park, H.; Lee, S., High-Performance Oxide-Based p–n Heterojunctions Integrating p-SnOx and n-InGaZnO. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2021, 13 (46), 55676-55686. Hautier, G.; Miglio, A.; Ceder, G.; Rignanese, G.-M.; Gonze, X., Identification and design principles of low hole effective mass p-type transparent conducting oxides. Nat Commun 2013, 4. Yim, K.; Youn, Y.; Lee, M.; Yoo, D.; Lee, J.; Cho, S. H.; Han, S., Computational discovery of p-type transparent oxide semiconductors using hydrogen descriptor. npj Computational Materials 2018, 4 (1), 17. Figure 1

Alternative channel materials for future ultra-scaled electronic devices have been intensively pursued nowadays since the feature size of silicon-based transistors has been scaled down to their physical limit. Atomically-thin semiconducting transitional metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) including WS2, MoS2, WSe2, MoSe2, e. have shown a lot of unique properties compared to their bulk crystals, such as indirect-to-direct bandgap transitions, strong spin-orbit coupling and valley polarization. In particular, monolayer WS2 has shown the highest theoretical room temperature electron mobility among other semiconducting TMDCs as a result of its low effective mass. Combined with the large exciton/trion binding energy with high photoluminescence quantum yield, monolayer WS2 is a strong candidate as a potential channel material for high-efficiency optoelectronic applications. However, it is still challenging to grow wafer-sized, highly uniform and strictly monolayer TMDCs continuous film through the conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) due to the uncontrollable growth kinetics. The evaporation rates and amounts of the heated precursors are uncontrollable because the saturation vapor pressure of the precursor is exponentially dependent on the temperature inside the furnace. The sulfurized film is thus consisted of a mixture of monolayer, bilayer and multiple layers of TMDCs. The film with such unreproducible quality is not applicable for real industrial applications. In this work, we provide a self-limiting growth strategy based on modified CVD process to prepare the wafer-sized monolayer TMDCs. Theoretical simulations were performed to understand the fundamental thermodynamically mechanism of the strictly monolayer growth. The property-variation in TMDCs due to difference in electronic structure between different layers of TMDCs can be significantly reduced based on this new approach. The following figure indicates that the PL spectra detected from different spots (spot 1 to 5) of the WS2 film. All spectra measured from the 4'' wafer-sized sample show characteristics unique to monolayer WS2. This poses a reliable route for the growth of large-area monolayer TMDCs, which is essential for their reliable and robust applications in nanoelectronic devices. Figure 1

In IC industry, the use of multiple die stack packaging has emerged to meet the increasing demand in miniaturization and improved functionality of mobile devices. During chip operation, transistor power dissipation raises temperature unevenly across a die. The generated thermal hotspots negatively impact reliability and degrade performance. In mechanical aspects, dies become thinner, and bumps and pitch become smaller, which makes heat dissipation more difficult, and lead to increase in mechanical stress. Such stress may cause carrier mobility degradation for transistors and could lead to parametric circuit failure. In the back-end-of-line (BEoL) interconnects, the employed ultra-low k materials prone to damage interconnects when mechanical stress is present, due to its brittle nature and poor adhesion to the barrier materials. These stresses originated at the die packaging step due to thermal mismatch between die and package materials, which is termed as chip package interaction (CPI). We call mechanical CPI (mCPI) when such stress affects reliability of the whole chip, i.e., BEoL, RDL (redistribution layer), bump, or TSVs (through silicon vias). When such stress affects device performance, we call electrical CPI (eCPI). To analyze CPI effects on a feature scale, i.e., in transistor channel or in the individual metal line or ILD (inter layer dielectric) /IMD (inter metal dielectric) gap, an analysis tool must generate accurate feature-scale stress variation across a die. Finite element analysis (FEA) is widely used for analyzing CPI induced problems. However, the traditional FEA cannot effectively handle feature-scale geometries due to huge memory consumption, and instead, treats a die as a uniform material block. Therefore, this approach cannot describe stress distribution caused by local non-uniformity of metal line distribution and fail to provide the needed accuracy for feature-scale analysis. [1] Here, we present an advanced physics-based EDA tool that overcomes the above-mentioned problems by introducing the novel methodology of extracting effective anisotropic thermal-mechanical properties (EMP), as well as employing FEA-based multi-scale simulation procedure. Prior to running FEA, the tool extracts EMP that accurately represent non-uniformities at different scales within a simulation domain. Here, each metal layer in a die is considered a binary system that consists of metal inclusions embedded in an insulator matrix. By dividing the die area into bins, metal density dependent effective properties for each bin are calculated according to theory of anisotropic composite materials. Anisotropy of properties can be obtained by taking routing direction of metal lines into account [2, 3]. EMP can adjust to multi-scale by varying bin size as shown in Fig.1. Here, Young’s modulus is extracted globally with coarse grid, and on sub-modeling region with very fine grid, which shows the corresponding property variation with much finer scale. Since EMP constructs no actual geometrical objects, the methodology can efficiently handle feature-scale objects on a large layout region. When a user selects a circuit block, or a region to be analyzed in detail, the automated tool flow enables two step stress simulation procedure, which is schematically shown in Fig. 2. First, the global-scale stress simulation is performed with coarse both the simulation mesh and EMP bin and extracts the boundary displacements for the circuit block. These boundary displacements are employed in the sub-modeling, with employed fine mesh and EMP bin. Figure 3 demonstrates the importance of EMP for accurate resolution of stress field. The 2D color maps show the x-component of stress distributions in a circuit block as a result of sub-modeling. Here, die BEoL is represented by EMP in (a), while in (b), the entire die including BEoL is represented by silicon, which is employed in traditional FEA. The stress pattern due to interconnect layout details are visible only when EMP is employed. The difference is even more pronounced when 1D stress profile is compared. By back annotating the obtained stress components in a SPICE netlist, the tool enables a user to perform accurate circuit simulation with accounted CPI effects. In eCPI analysis, the tool has been validated by employing measurements of different types of devices [4]. The additional tool capabilities that will be presented are mCPI analysis and thermomechanical stress analysis during chip operating conditions. [1] R. Radojcic, More-than-Moore 2.5D and 3D SiP Integration, Springer, 2017. [2] V. Sukharev et al. J. Electron Test, vol. 28, pp. 63-72, 2012 [3] V. Sukharev et al., Proc. Int. 3D Systems Integration Conference, 2019 [4]. A. Kteyan, et al. Proc. ISPD 2022 Figure 1

We develop a theory for scaling properties of quantum transport in nano-field effect transistors. Our starting point is a one-dimensional effective expression for the drain current in the Landauer-Büttiker formalism. Assuming a relatively simple total potential acting on the electrons the effective theory can be reduced to a scale-invariant form yielding a set of dimensionless control parameters. Among these control parameters are the characteristic length l and -width w of the electron channel which are its physical length and -width in units of the scaling length . Here is the Fermi energy in the source contact and is the effective mass in the electron channel. In the limit of wide transistors and low temperatures we evaluate the scale-invariant i-v characteristics as a function of the characteristic length. In the strong barrier regime, i. e. for long-channel behavior is found. At weaker barriers source-drain tunneling leads to increasingly significant deviations from the long-channel behavior.

AbstractReducing supply voltage is a promising way to address the power dissipation in nano-electronic circuits. However, the fundamental lower limit of subthreshold slope (SS) within metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) is a major obstacle to further scaling the operation voltage without degrading ON/OFF ratio in current integrated circuits. Tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) benefit from steep switching characteristics due to the quantum-mechanical tunneling injection of carriers from source to channel, rather than by conventional thermionic emission in MOSFETs. TFETs based on group III-V compound semiconductor materials further improve the ON-state current and reduce SS due to the low band gap energies and smaller carrier tunneling mass. The mixed arsenide/antimonide (As/Sb) InxGa1-xAs/GaAsySb1-y heterostructures allow a wide range of band gap energies and various staggered band alignments depending on the alloy compositions in the source and channel materials. Band alignments at source/channel heterointerface can be well modulated by carefully controlling the compositions of the mixed As/Sb material system. In particular, this review introduces and summarizes the progress in the development and optimization of low-power TFETs using mixed As/Sb based heterostructures including basic working principles, design considerations, material growth, interface engineering, material characterization, device fabrication, device performance investigation, band alignment determination, and high temperature reliability. A review of TFETs using mixed As/Sb based heterostructures shows superior structural properties and distinguished device performance, both of which indicate the mixed As/Sb staggered gap TFET as a promising option for high-performance, low-standby power, and energy-efficient logic circuit application.

Inserted narrow InAs quantum wells in InAs/InGaAs/InAlAs heterostructures have been used to achieve higher mobility for high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) with ultra-low-power and low-noise amplification characteristics and for spin-based devices. Due to the large nonparabolicity of the conduction band of InAs and the penetration of the confined electronic envelope function into the adjacent layer(s), accurate calculations of effective mass and g-factor of charge carriers can be problematic. Methods of making precise determinations of the mass and other electronic parameters are thus of interest. We have applied magneto-photoresponse and -transmissions measurements at several THz laser frequencies in concert with dc magnetotransport measurements at low temperature (T = 1.6 K) to determine various electronic parameters (effective mass, carrier density, g-factor, mobility and the quantum scattering time) of the 2DEG in an InAs/In0.75Ga0.25As/In0.75Al0.25As inserted channel structure. This characterization method can also be used to probe the effect of strain, Rashba field, etc on the properties of charge carriers in such structures.

AbstractThe quest for high device density in advanced technology nodes makes strain engineering increasingly difficult in the last few decades. The mechanical strain and performance gain has also started to diminish due to aggressive transistor pitch scaling. In order to continue Moore’s law of scaling, it is necessary to find an effective way to enhance carrier transport in scaled dimensions. In this regard, the use of alternative nanomaterials that have superior transport properties for metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) channel would be advantageous. Because of the extraordinary electron transport properties of certain III–V compound semiconductors, III–Vs are considered a promising candidate as a channel material for future channel metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor devices. In this review, the importance of the III–V semiconductor nanostructured channel in MOSFET is highlighted with a proposed III–V GaN nanostructured channel (thickness of 10 nm); Al2O3 dielectric gate oxide based MOSFET is reported with a very low threshold voltage of 0.1 V and faster switching of the device.

With the passage of time the semiconductor research community around the globe has progressed from a nearly four decades of dominating Silicon research to look for newer transistor materials, in the pursuit of more operating speed along with reduced power, area and cost. Low effective mass materials like III-V compounds are the best examples of such transistor materials. In order to use those materials in real life transistor design and electronic applications an engineer must have a set of mathematical models ready to use- which accurately predict various electronic characteristics of the devices. Therefore, the development of canonical compact models for low effective mass channel material transistors is of prime importance for bringing these wonder materials into real life use. Compact modelling is necessarily the art of translating the highly cumbersome and complicated physics within an electronic device into a set of predictable, portable, robust and computationally efficient analytical equations | that can be used in real-time circuit design. Existing compact models on low effective mass channel materials have a number of critical limitations, e.g. dealing with only symmetric oxide thickness, excessive use of unphysical approaches and empirical fitting parameters etc. Through our work | for the first time a fully physical, robust, portable compact model of low effective mass channel Common Double Gate MOSFET has been proposed and implemented. This compact model is a combination of accurate yet computationally efficient Surface Potential Equation (SPE) having analytical solution of coupled Schrodinger-Poisson equation, a Quantum Drift-Diffusion (QDD) based current transport and terminal charge model along with inclusion of DIBL effect. Due to enormous quantum confinement, the quasi-Fermi levels of each energy sub-band remains distant from each other because the carriers remain in the thermal equilibrium in their respective sub-bands. This segregation in quasi-Fermi levels, caused by strong quantum confinement, severely affects the transport in the semiconductor channel | thus changing the transport from normal Drift-Diffusion as in Silicon MOSFETs to QDD in low effective mass channel MOSFETs. The model development starts with a couple of rightfully logical assumptions, which are compensated in subsequent stages to the best possible extent. The wave-function corresponding to a particular sub-band in the channel is derived only under at-band condition. It is used throughout in model development, and in the last stage the model is compensated by introducing an analytically derived correction factor. Individual sub-band energies are also derived initially underground state, and in later stages their bias dependence is addressed through perturbation technique. While modelling the transport, channel charge density for an individual sub-band is shown to be varying linearly with sub-band energy along the chan- nel, resulting into a square law current versus channel charge density model. The uniqueness of the proposed model lies in its precise handling of multiple issues like asymmetry in oxide layer thickness, wave function penetration, bias dependent diffusivity, Quantum Drift-Diffusion transport, multi-sub-band carrier occupancy and wide range of material effective mass, device thickness along with input voltages | without ever using a single unphysical polynomial fitting or empirical constant, while preserving the mathematical lucidity of industry standard Silicon MOSFET models. The proposed model is validated against numerical TCAD simulation for various device geometries, oxide asymmetries, material properties and successfully implemented in professional circuit simulator through its verilog-A interface. Through this work, the fundamental Quantum Drift-Diffusion transport is for the first time introduced into circuit simulation, which earlier was limited within device simulation only | thus opening the possibility of designing circuits using low effective mass materials.

Abstract Focused Ion Beam (FIB) chip circuit editing is a well-established highly specialized laboratory technique for making direct changes to the functionality of integrated circuits. A precisely tuned and placed ion beam in conjunction with process gases selectively uncovers internal circuitry, create functional changes in devices or the copper wiring pattern, and reseals the chip surface. When executed within reasonable limits, the revised circuit logic functions essentially the same as if the changes were instead made to the photomasks used to fabricate the chip. The results of the intended revision, however, can be obtained weeks or months earlier than by a full fabrication run. Evaluating proposed changes through FIB modification rather than proceeding immediately to mask changes has become an integral part of the process for bringing advanced designs to market at many companies. The end product of the FIB process is the very essence of handcrafted prototyping. The efficacy of the FIB technique faces new challenges with every generation of fabrication process node advancement. Ever shrinking geometries and new material sets have always been a given as transistor size decreases and overall packing density increases. The biggest fundamental change in recent years was the introduction of the FinFET as a replacement for the venerable planar transistor. Point to point wiring change methodology has generally followed process scaling, but transistor deletions or modifications with the change to Fins require a somewhat different approach and much more careful control due to the drastic change in height and shape. We also had to take into consideration the importance of the 4th terminal, the body-tie, that is often lost in backside editing. Some designs and FET technology can function acceptably well when individual devices are no longer connected to the bulk substrate or well, while others can suffer from profound shifts in performance. All this presents a challenge given that the primary beam technology improvements of the fully configured chip edit FIB has only evolved incrementally during the same time period. The gallium column system appears to be reaching its maximum potential. Further, as gallium is a p-type metal dopant, there are limitations to its use in close proximity to certain active semiconductor devices. Amorphous material formation and other damage mechanisms that extend beyond what can be seen visually when endpointing must also be taken into account [1]. Device switching performance and even transmission line characteristics of nearby wiring levels can be impacted by material structural changes from implantation cascades. Last year our lab participated in a design validation exercise in which we were asked to modify the drive of a multi-finger FinFET device structure to reduce its switching speed impact on a circuit. The original sized device pulled the next node in the chain too fast, resulting in a timing upset. Deleting whole structures and bridging over/around them is commonly done, but modifications to the physical size of an FET device is a rare request and generally not attempted. It requires a level of precision in beam control and post-edit treatment that can be difficult to execute cleanly. Once again during a complex edit task we considered the use of an alternate ion beam species such as neon, or reducing the beam energy (low kV) on the gallium tool. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have easy access to a versatile viable replacement column technology grafted to a fully configured edit station. And while there should be significantly reduced implant damage and transistor functional change when a gallium column FIB is operated at lower accelerating potential [2], the further loss of visual acuity due to the reduced secondary emission, especially when combined with ultra-low beam currents, made fast and accurate navigation near impossible. We instead chose the somewhat unconventional approach of using an ultra-low voltage electron beam to do much of the navigation and surface marking prior to making the final edits with the gallium ion beam in a dual-beam FIB tool. Once we had resolved how to accurately navigate to the transistors in question and expose half of the structure without disturbing the body-tie, we were able to execute the required cut to trim away 50% of the structure and reduce the effective drive. Several of the FIB modified units functioned per the design parameters of a smaller sized device, giving confidence to proceed with the revised mask set. To our surprise, the gallium beam performed commendably well in this most difficult task. While we still believe that an inert beam of similar characteristics would be preferable, this work indicates that gallium columns are still viable at the 14 nm FinFET node for even the most rigorous of editing requirements. It also showed that careful application of e-beam imaging on the exposed underside of FinFET devices could be performed without degrading or destroying them.

High-performance transparent and flexible thin film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated on glass and plastic substrates using alligned SnO2 nanowires as the channel material. High densities of crystalline SnO2 nanowires were dry-transferred directly onto the glass/plastic substrates, followed by low-temperature patterning of the source/drain and gate electrodes. Transparent TFTs fabricated on glass substrates show excellent electrical properties and optical transmittance. Excellent mechanical flexibility can be further obtained under cyclic tension experiments in devices fabricated on plastic substrates. The charge carrier mobility was estimated to be as high as 160 cm2/V·s — two orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional amorphous-silicon or organic TFTs. Cutoff frequency &gt; 70 MHz and on/off ratio &gt; 106 have also been demonstrated. The low-cost nanowire growth and dry-transfer processes make this approach a cost-effective means to fabricate transparent and/or flexible TFTs on non-conventional substrates.

This paper is the first part of a two part study into the pressure-flow characteristics of a range of microchannels measured over a range of typical Reynolds numbers. Here the manufacture of the channels and their resulting quality is addressed. The target application is silicon cooling. Wet Etching, Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) and Precision Sawing have been used to create microchannels in silicon and thermoset plastic. Anodic bonding has been used to bond covers onto the DRIE and Wet Etched channels. Wet etching a (100) silicon wafer using a KOH solution produced trapezoidal channels of width 577 μm and height 413μm. DRIE using the Bosch process produced rectangular channels in (100) silicon of width 304μm and height 332μm. Mechanical sawing using a Disco Dicing Saw produced near rectangular channels in both silicon and plastic. The silicon channels were 52μm wide and 423μm deep, and the plastic channels were 203μm wide by 344 or 382μm deep. Channel dimensions were measured using a scanning electron microscope. Silicon was the main material chosen, since it is possible to cut cooling channels directly into one side of a silicon device, while the electronic parts are deposited on the other, giving effective cooling with minimal thermal resistance. The plastics chosen are commonly used to encapsulate electronic packages and will also be in close proximity to the heat producing regions of the device it protects. Embossed channels on a plastic encapsulant also potentially offer a low cost mass producible means of cooling electronic devices with a low overall thermal resistance. A glass cover was anodically bonded over the silicon channels to prevent channel to channel leakage and provide optical access. The plastic channels were also covered by a glass slide, bonded in position using SU8 Photoresist spun on the glass. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of producing relatively large microchannels in two materials by three methods. Part two of this paper will describe the modular flow test system and analyze the flow friction through the channels.