Manufacturing of Semiconductors and Thin-film Integrated Coating

MSTIC is designed to produce semiconductors and metallic films in space. It includes a swappable production vacuum chamber, swappable gas cylinders, a crew serviceable computer and high voltage power supplies to produce a fully contained autonomous sputtering system. The thin film electrical devices are produced with a “3D printed” direct write sputtering process utilizing high-density, high-flux plasmas at low temperature and pressures. The process includes additive and subtractive manufacturing. The PVD (physical vapor deposition) sputtering acts as an additive process for depositing material on the surface of a substrate.

The CVD (chemical vapor deposition) acts as a subtractive process for cleaning, removing, or milling materials from the surface of the substrate rather than as an additive process. Both processes involve plasma-based emitters. The emitter gasses can be mixed to accomplish nitriding or reactive sputtering. The CVD gasses can be used for cleaning or condensation for organic thin film deposition. Manufacturing these films on-orbit may lead to more uniform crystal lattices through minimization of fractal formation from columnar growth and thickness uniformity of the films, which improve conductivity and power efficiently and ultimately device performance.