The international research team that Dr. Yu-Lun Chueh of the participated Materials Science and Engineering Department, used an epitaxial transfer method to successfully integrate certain chemical compounds on to silicon substrates, completing semiconductor-on-insulator technology. In the future, they hope to combine photonic and electronic components together, giving Taiwan's semiconductor industry an edge in the ever competitive world market. These research results have been published in the November 11^th issue of Nature. In the afternoon of November 17^th, Professor Yu-Lun Chueh and research members of NTHU were led by President, Lih J. Chen, to attend a press conference held at the National Science Council to announce this research breakthrough.

According to Prof. Yu-Lun Chueh, TSMC announced that they have started to use 40nm process platforms in mass production. They are currently developing the production capacity of 32nm process technology. They are also contemplating the development of 22nm process technology, but have faced limitations in furthering smaller semiconductor processing technology. However, this obstacle can be overcome with present silicon-on-insulator technology (SOI).

Although present SOI technology has many advantages, and can be used in developing 22nm semiconductor technology, however, to overcome limitations met when miniaturizing below 22nm, the research direction must be aimed at the integration of new highly efficient materials and silicon substrates. Presently, Prof. Yu-Lun Chueh and the American research team have been using an epitaxial transfer method to successfully integrate the photonic attributes of several components onto an electric silicon component.

Prof. Yu-Lun Chueh explained that this process is preformed at a relatively low temperature, with no need for any kind of joining. In semiconductor-on-insulator technology (XOI), they use photolithography etching techniques to make nanoribbon arrays, selectively removing the underlying layer, and then pressing the nanoribbon arrays onto silicon substrates.

He also explained that the most unique attribute of XOI is that with the three dimensional multilayer transferring and heterojunction transferring can integrate different semiconductor materials into current silicon processing. Furthermore, in the future if it is used to combine photonic and electronic components together, than it will surely be another major breakthrough.

Prof. Yu-Lun Chueh said that in the future promotion of this technology, they might have to wait another 20 years before industrial application. He also mentioned that future research will turn towards optical transmission instead of electronic transmission, since light is faster than electrons and doesn't create heat. In the future, computing speed and computer memory will increase and we might see the appearance of a quantum computer.