Air Liquide Electronics awarded for innovation

An advanced precursor developed by Air Liquide’s teams has received the IC Industry Award*" at SEMICON Europa 2009, held recently in Dresden (Germany).

To make increasingly efficient electronic devices, the semiconductor industry must rely on new chip materials.

Ruthenium is one such material poised to become a crucial element, particularly in data storage and memories.

Ruthenium is notably used in manufacturing new generation hard disk reading heads based on a novel physical effect, known as giant magnetoresistance. Its discovery by Albert Fert (France) and Peter Grünberg (Germany) earned them both the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2007.

To develop these new reading heads, as well as memories and other electronic components, Air Liquide Group’s research teams created and patented a new advanced precursor, ToRuSTM, which is used to deposit of very thin ruthenium layers only a few atoms thick. Today, ToRuSTM is used by several of the Group’s customers.

At SEMICON Europa 2009, the results of votes cast by 25,000 professionals in the electronics industry designated ToRuSTM the winner of the Enabling Material prize, which recognizes inventions that allow for significant progress in electronic components manufacturing.

Air Liquide’s Electronics activity recorded revenue of €1,044 million in 2008. Its sales were mostly ultra-pure gases, specialty gases, new molecules, equipment for the use of these products, and customized services.