Xidex Corporation, in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UT Austin, has developed one of Texas' first commercial applications of nanotechnology for semiconductor production using technical resources at SEMATECH's Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF). The process uses carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as surface sensors for scanning probe microscopes (SPMs). The work is being done with funding from the Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC) under a contract with SEMATECH that began in late 2004. The AMRC was launched in March 2004 by the State of Texas and SEMATECH to work with the UT System and other Texas universities in investigating promising new semiconductor technologies that will ensure the state.s high tech future.

In 1998, International SEMATECH's Advanced Metrology Advisory Group partnered with Xidex by funding an early prototype of Xidex's critical-dimension atomic force microscope (CD-AFM). This prototype was successfully demonstrated for International SEMATECH in 2000 and paved the way for subsequent development of our dual-probe NanoCaliper^TM AFM.