Open-ended Terms: Gas-pressure bonding. Solid-state-bonding by the gas-pressure-bonding process employs a gas at high pressure and elevated temperature in order to fabricate metallic or ceramic materials. The process has been used to produce metallurgical bonds between similar and dissimilar metals, ceramics, and cermet materials. It appears to be ideal for fabricating brittle materials or materials of widely differing properties. Consolidation of metallic and ceramic powders to densities approaching theoretical is readily accomplished by gaspressure bonding at temperatures well below those normally required in sintering operations, and the resulting grain growth is held to a minimum. Numerous configurations have been fabricated from Be and Nb by the gas-pressurebonding process. Examples are cited of typical nuclear fuel elements and various structural components of interest for aircraft and missile application. (Author).

The focus behind this book on wafer bonding is the fast paced changes in the research and development in three-dimensional (3D) integration, temporary bonding and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) with new functional layers. Written by authors and edited by a team from microsystems companies and industry-near research organizations, this handbook and reference presents dependable, first-hand information on bonding technologies. Part I sorts the wafer bonding technologies into four categories: Adhesive and Anodic Bonding; Direct Wafer Bonding; Metal Bonding; and Hybrid Metal/Dielectric Bonding. Part II summarizes the key wafer bonding applications developed recently, that is, 3D integration, MEMS, and temporary bonding, to give readers a taste of the significant applications of wafer bonding technologies. This book is aimed at materials scientists, semiconductor physicists, the semiconductor industry, IT engineers, electrical engineers, and libraries.

This issue of ECS Transactions covers state-of-the-art R&D results of the last 1.5 years in the field of semiconductor wafer bonding technology. Wafer Bonding Technology can be used to create novel composite materials systems and devices what would otherwise be unattainable. Wafer bonding today is rapidly expanding applications in such diverse fields as photonics, sensors, MEMS, X-ray optics, non-electronic microstructures, high performance CMOS platforms for high end servers, Si-Ge, strained SOI, Germanium-on-Insulator (GeOI), and Nanotechnologies.