Germanium hydride for semiconductors
Herman in Russia
It is known that the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of High-Purity Substances of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with the Electrochemical Plant (JSC TVEL), developed a centrifuge technology for separating germanium isotopes through monogermane in the 2010s. The enriched product was purified from impurities using low-temperature rectification. Then, isotopically enriched polycrystalline germanium was produced by pyrolysis at 450 °C (decomposition during heating). In particular, germanium-76 is used in the manufacture of low-background radiation detectors, which are used for scientific experiments, for example, concerning neutrinos. Another isotope, germanium-72, is widely in demand in microelectronics. The thermal conductivity of the third isotope, germanium-70, is several times higher than that of germanium of natural isotopic composition. This effect, when used in electronic circuits, will increase their density and speed.
By the way, germanium isotopes are now used mostly in expensive experiments. And in such areas as solid-state microelectronics, production of semiconductor detectors or IR technology, germanium isotopes have not yet found active application, although their commercial potential is visible.
Patent aspect
The Google.Patents portal lists 60,990 documents for June 2024 for Germane (GeH4). Among patent holders, the TOP-5 leaders were:
Toshiba Corp — 8.1%;
Oki Electric Ind Co Ltd (The idea of a professional sportsman) — 3.4%;
Applied Materials, Inc. — 2.7%.
As you can see, the undisputed leader is Japanese Toshiba, which in our small rating is represented by its parent and subsidiary companies. Taiwanese TSMC is hot on the heels of Japanese Oki. The American semiconductor corporation Applied Materials closes the top five. One can only be surprised by the activity of Japanese enterprises.
Popular patent topics within the International Patent Classification are as follows:
Patents devoted to various electronic devices in general are in the lead, with semiconductor devices leading by a huge margin (H01L). Examples are TWI606586B And US11011502B2
And what then? in Russia?
The FIPS database lists only 11 Russian patents for inventions for “German”, of which only 7 are operational. In the subclass “semiconductor devices H01L» you can find 3 patents, and the patent holder is one – Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky:
No.2585900 “Method for growing a silicon-germanium heterostructure.”
No.2669159 “Method of vacuum epitaxial growth of doped germanium layers”.
No.2775812 “Method for manufacturing an epitaxial thin-film structure of boron-doped germanium.”
There are no valid Russian patents for utility models.
There is no computer program.
There are no databases.
There are also no integrated circuit topologies.
These are, in fact, all the achievements of domestic engineering thought.
Conclusion
High-purity Germanium is relevant for the production of components for microcircuits in the 2-12 GHz frequency range with a high degree of integration for radar and communication equipment for on-board and ground applications, consumer and automotive electronics, as well as for a wide range of ultra-high-frequency integrated circuits on SiGe with operating frequencies up to 150 GHz.
In Russia, there is no publicly available information about this kind of scientific, technical and industrial activity. As always, one can only hope that some progress will still be made.
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