The Microelectronics and MEMS laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras has grown from a small beginning into one of the most well known Semiconductor Research laboratories in India over the last thirty years. At present it is a well-equipped laboratory for semiconductor device and MEMS fabrication, characterization, modeling and simulation. It has Class-100 and Class-1000 clean rooms which house the major facilities which include a Mask writer, double-sided lithography facility, substrate bond aligner, LPCVD for polysilicon deposition, PECVD for dielectrics, diffusion furnaces, e-beam metallization unit and RIE for dry etching. A probe station, parametric analyzer and LCR meters are used for electrical characterization, while a non-contact surface profiler and ellipsometer are used for process characterization. ATLAS, MEDICI, Coventorware and Intellisuite are some of the commercial softwares used for simulation. The facilities have been used for fabrication and characterization of devices based on silicon, GaAs and InP based materials, and for modeling various types of devices as listed below. Some activity has also been initiated on GaN and silicon based photonic devices. A wide array of devices, e.g. polysilicon gate n-channel MOSFETs, bipolar junction transistors, pressure sensors with integrated amplifiers, GaAs MESFETs, pigtailed InGaAs/InP PIN photodiodes and variable optical attenuators have been fabricated in the laboratory.

MEMS is one of the thrust areas for the laboratory for the last ten years. Design and fabrication of sensors, actuators and RF MEMS switches and resonators have been carried out. Other MEMS related activities include microfluidics, evaluation of mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus and residual strain in MEMS structures and stiction in surface micromachined devices. Silicon based biosensors to detect total triglyceride content in blood serum has also been developed in our laboratory in collaboration with the Department of Biotechnology. We have also worked on active normally-closed piezoelectric microvalve for automated control of fluids, and PDMS based microfluidic devices.
Modelling and design of novel semiconductor devices are other important areas of research. This activity is focused on power and high-frequency semiconductor devices, 3-dimensional modeling for small geometry devices, quantum-mechanical modeling of small geometry devices and heterojunction devices.
The laboratory has very close interaction with Indian industry such as BEL, Bangalore and has carried out several sponsored research projects for DRDO, ISRO and DST. Many of the processes developed in this laboratory have been transferred to industry for commercialization.

The microlectronics lab offers MS and PhD degrees in the various areas mentioned above. Interested students are encouraged to apply. Details will be available at the IITM department webpage.  Those interested in working in a project may follow the ‘opportunities’ link for more information.