Diamond Foundry Creates World's First Diamond Wafer & Largest Diamond on Earth

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Nov 06, 2023, 06:00 ET

A Milestone in the History of Technology

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Diamond Foundry Inc. ("DF") today announced that it has created the world's first (100mm) single-crystal diamond wafer.

A culmination of work that DF team members started three decades ago, creating the first diamond wafer required an entire stack of technologies to be developed including the creation of single crystal lattice on scalable substrates, large area diamond ingot growth, diamond singulation technology, and precision-surface processing.

The world’s first single-crystal diamond wafer -- and also the largest-sized diamond that ever existed on Earth.

No wafer-sized diamond exists anywhere on Earth, so DF had to figure out how to create the "mother of all diamond wafers", then used to produce more. Employing a technology of mind-boggling complexity called diamond heteroepitaxy which creates single-crystal diamond on scalable substrates and combining it with other technologies, the company arrived at the first ever wafer that is a single crystal of diamond. (Prior simulants existed effectively in the form of compressed powder of diamond but with properties not matched by a single crystal.)

Compared with natural resources on Earth, the Cullinan Diamond is the largest rough diamond ever mined on Earth yet with its largest dimension at 5.89cm, it is more than 4cm smaller than DF's diamond.

Single-crystal wafers are the very foundation of today's most advanced technologies. The creation of the first silicon wafer in 1959 ultimately came to define modern life as we know it today.

DF's next goal is to further reduce the defect density of its diamond wafer – to realize the textbook semiconductor figure of merit of diamond, which is 17,200 superior to silicon and 60 times superior to silicon carbide.

Diamond Foundry Inc. is the #1 producer of single-crystal diamond in the world, with a foundry in Washington State that is ten times larger than the next largest in the USA. By solving the thermal limitations at the very foundation of each of today's most exciting mega tech industries including AI, electric cars, and wireless, the company helps shape the future. Learn more at www.DF.com

CONTACT: Lena Nieves, [email protected]

SOURCE Diamond Foundry