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Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor has unveiled the Viper 2435 automated dispositioning system. The Viper 2435 is designed to capture the broadest range of critical defects while filtering out nuisance, enabling it to deliver quick go/no-go indicators that allow chipmakers to take corrective action before excursions become costly yield problems. Designed to provide high dispositioning accuracy at high throughput, the company claims a 67 percent lower cost of ownership than manual inspection alternatives.


Problem: As the volume of semiconductor product moving through 300-mm fabs continues to increase, process- and tool-induced excursions carry a greater yield impact. As a result, higher sampling rates are required to capture excursions early in the process, before they cause production problems downstream or, worse, lead to yield loss. The ability to quickly disposition wafers and process tools enables fabs to take swift corrective actions: reworking or scrapping a wafer, and resolving any process module or process tool problems. Since the defect types that cause yield loss vary widely by process module, using an inspector designed to capture one or two specific defect types is not the best approach for dispositioning systems. They must be capable of detecting a broad range of defects—including unexpected defect types—from scanner- and track-induced defects in lithography, to polisher-induced defects in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) and pattern failure at etch.


Solution: The Viper 2435 addresses cost- and quality-related challenges by providing the broadest capture of critical defect types in the industry, at sampling rates of up to 100 wafers per hour, according to the company. Using the Viper 2435 at the lithography, CMP, etch and films modules, a fab can quickly flag wafers having killer defects that require corrective action, while bypassing wafers having nuisance defects that simply consume production time. Since the tool is integrated with KLA-Tencor's Klarity® Defect data management software, fabs can implement a streamlined, automated yield and root-cause analysis strategy that enables faster time from data to decisions.

Applications: lithography, CMP, etch and films modules.

Platform: Available as a field upgrade from earlier Viper 2430 systems. Simultaneous brightfield and darkfield inspection channels with full factory automation enables rapid integration into production. Advanced discrimination algorithms, along with adaptive thresholding techniques, strengthen the tool's nuisance suppression capabilities. Full frontside, edge damage, and optional backside inspection provide extended wafer coverage