Objective
The market for discrete light emitting diodes (LEDs) is very fast growing. Basic materials for white and blue LEDs are wafers of Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Sapphire (Al2O3). Today European enterprises, most of them SMEs, hold less than 5% of worldwide wafer production due to high production costs compared to the main producers Russia, USA and Japan.
The most time consuming and therefore expensive process steps in production of sapphire wafers are lapping and polishing. This process chain can be significantly shortened by substituting lapping by grinding as grinding allows for a much better surface quality in a shorter time. As a result the time needed for polishing will be diminished as well. This will be a decisive step for the European wafer manufacturers to gain significant shares in a highly profitable market.
As grinding of silicon wafers, basic material for red and yellow LEDs, today is state of the art, grinding of sapphire wafers fails due to the variability and the interaction of individual effects during the grinding process. Due to this reasons, a direct measurement of the in-process parameters within the contact zone between work piece and grinding wheel is of eminent interest for developing a stable grinding process.
ThermoGrind will allow the measurement of one of the key process parameters, the grinding temperature. For this, the optical transparency of sapphire for infrared radiation initiated in the contact zone will be exploited. Following this principle, ThermoGrind develops an innovative infrared transparent wafer clamping system (chuck) that allows temperature measurement by capturing the infrared radiation transmitted through wafer and clamping system. As a second step ThermoGrind will develop a temperature based loop control of the grinding process in order to achieve optimal process stability under mass production conditions
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry inorganic compounds
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-SME-2008-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
80686 Muenchen
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.