|
SEZ hopes to make big splash with FEOL wet-cleaning tool |
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2006 at 09:00 AM |
I've heard or endured hundreds of new product and technology launch spiels over the years, from the most expensive deep-UV 193-nm lithography tools to elegant widgets that supposedly help a gas panel, liquid delivery system, or robotic array work better.
Sometimes a launch is just a launch, other times there's a lot more at stake. SEZ may not be betting the store with the rollout of its new Esanti front-end-of-line (FEOL) single-wafer wet-cleaning tool, but it's not just another plainwrap product launch either.
Who better to explain SEZ's FEOL strategy to me than Leo Archer, one of the company's technology experts and its resident Big Fella. Having been witness to many a presentation completely void of humor and full of boilerplated platitudes, I find Leo's explanatory skills and irreverent attitude a proverbial breath of fresh air. He gave me the nickel tour by phone last week.
Rather than go through the Esanti platform chapter and verse (you can click on the highlighted text above for that), here are some key points. In terms of market, SEZ has a chance to double or triple its market, notes Leo. Previously it had a couple of minor applications in the front end, but it has been predominantly a BEOL tool company. He believes that no clear winner has emerged among the cleaning tool companies, so the customers are looking at everyone and have been waiting for the launch of the SEZ tool. Approaches that show excellent defect reduction and selectivity---as Leo puts it, "remove more and more defects off the surface with less and less impact on the surface"---will emerge victorious in the battle for customer acceptance and market share.
The tool itself is not a revolutionary product---it incorporates many of the features found on SEZ's existing systems, such as single-wafer handling, double-sided process capability, and multichamber design (chipmakers can get it in a four- or eight-chamber model). But it also has several new features that the company believes separate it from the pack, including a double-sided wafer chuck (see photo below), high-temperature stripping with its proprietary enhanced sulfuric acid (ESA) capability, an "active-jet" spray for nondamaging particle removal, and "atmospheric surface drying" (ASD). A chamber can handle three chemical media at a time, and in-line chemical mixing can be used for single-pass dilute chemistries.
Leo told me that a single-chamber alpha tool has been installed at a foundry customer for several months, with a couple of production-style beta systems being installed at two sites in the Asia-Pacific region. SEZ has already received its first order and expects to ship that tool in Q2 of next year.
Resist removal applications are what he calls the "lowest hanging fruit," including postash cleans and other all-wet stripping needs. HF-last is also seen as very important, he says. One area where SEZ was pleasantly surprised was drying, with better-than-expected results and vastly improved performance, without damage or watermarks, according to the Big Fella.
Leo points out that wet cleaning has its limitations, and that chipmakers cannot remove all resists with either an all-wet or all-dry approach. Applications such as source drain implant resist removal offer no simple solutions. Synergistic plans incorporating both wet and dry techniques, especially as the roadmap moves closer to the 22-nm node, have to be perfected, since "there are clearly things that you cannot do with dry strip and there are clearly things that you cannot do with wet strip." But, Leo adds, "we can live with that if we're the wet clean of choice."
Later today look for another blog posting, where Dean Freeman of Gartner Dataquest weighs in on the SEZ launch and the FEOL wet-cleaning sector in general.
|
Blogs 
