Online information source for semiconductor professionals

Product Briefing Outline: Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: RTEC), a worldwide leader in high-performance process control metrology, defect inspection and data analysis for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, today announced the rollout of its new ‘Explorer' Inspection Cluster—a family of multi-surface inspection tools designed to deliver fast, accurate and reliable macro inspection at a low cost-of-ownership.

Problem: The continued requirement for ever-increasing levels of wafer surface inspection due to continued scaling, larger wafer size and new defect challenges has seen the number of inspection tools required within fabs increase considerably. This has led to an increased burden on chip manufacturers to select a broader-range of tools to undertake increasingly specific inspection tasks.

Solution: Adopting the cluster concept from wafer processing tools, the Explorer System uses adaptive wafer scheduling, which can route wafers from different incoming lots among multiple inspection modules to provide the specific results needed for a given application in the shortest possible time.  It will permit individual systems to be configured with any combination of wafer front, back, and edge inspection capabilities. Independently configurable inspection modules let users mix and match throughput and inspection type to best fit specific requirements that do not require investment in unnecessary capability or capacity. In addition, real-time image capture and storage eliminates the need to revisit most defects. Through a combination of real-time binning, automatic wafer-level defect classification and spatial pattern recognition, customers can quickly reduce the number of point defects to be reviewed.           

Applications: Initial Explorer Systems will be configured for edge and backside inspection, and targeted for high-volume production applications in advanced processes, such as immersion lithography, copper CMP and high-k dielectrics.

Platform: The Explorer family is built on Rudolph's automated handling platform, supporting two industry-standard loadports and up to three independently-configurable inspection/measurement modules. Future models of the Explorer will be based on a four-loadport configuration capable of supporting up to five modules. Modules may be shut down individually for maintenance without taking the entire system down. Windows- based software supports offline recipe creation and remote monitoring.

Availability: July 2007 onwards.