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Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials has launched its Applied Producer ‘ACE' SACVD system. The system is designed to extend 193nm lithography using self-aligned double patterning (SADP) schemes, Applied's ACE system is claimed to deliver a highly conformal oxide spacer film with >95 percent step coverage, <5 percent pattern loading and <1 percent non-uniformity, enabling state-of-the-art critical dimension control. Combined with a benchmark throughput of >80 wafers per hour and a low thermal budget, the ACE system extends spacer solutions for SADP to the 32nm node and beyond.

Problem: The conventional lithography process step is struggling to keep pace with the demand for higher memory storage densities; SADP technology is intended to enable a doubling of pattern densities using current litho schemes, helping to extend installed lithography tool base and processes for 32nm and beyond.

Solution: Spacer films play a key role in fabricating advanced memory cells using SADP schemes. Deposited on top of a sacrificial APF line/space array, the ACE spacer film becomes a hard mask that creates half-pitch features in a second APF layer below. The performance of Applied's ACE technology has been validated at Applied's Maydan Technology Center. An advanced TANOS flash memory structure was fabricated using an advanced SADP technique. The structure was successfully optimized using Applied's Producer CVD, Centura AdvantEdge G3 Etch and VeritySEM Metrology systems. This advanced learning is claimed to assist chip manufacturers in reducing development time and cost for implementing double patterning technology in their next generation devices.

Applications: Self-aligned double patterning (SADP) schemes.

Platform: The ‘Twin Chamber' architecture of Applied's ‘Producer GT' platform offers the leading throughput density, according to the company. Applied's Producer CVD systems are being used by every major chip manufacturer, with more than 1,500 systems shipped worldwide.

Availability: July 2007 onwards.

IMAGE: Self-aligned double patterning using Applied's Producer ACE technology enables state-of-the-art 22nm line/space features. (Immersion lithography courtesy of Albany Nanotech) (Photo: Maydan Technology Center)