|
Life on the (wafer's) edge just got better |
|
|
|
Oct 26, 2006 at 03:57 PM |
T
hree recent news announcements bode well for yield enhancement in those troublesome last few millimeters of silicon real estate on the wafer's edge.
Rudolph Technologies and Tokyo Electron have agreed to a tech-transfer deal that will allow TEL to globally distribute Rudolph's integrated lithography inspection tools---including the increasingly critical edge exclusion, edge bevel, and other related capabilities---as part of its coater/developer track systems.
KLA-Tencor has introduced its VisEdge CV300 edge-inspection system, which features the optical surface analyzer (OSA) technology that came to K-T as part of the Candela acquisition, a platform the company says will "overcome the limitations of existing edge-inspection techniques and enable broader capture and better distinction of edge defectivity to increase yield."
On the process consumables front, a joint project between SemiQuest and Sematech's ATDF "R&D foundry" subsidiary has led to the development of a new CMP pad system---the eSQ planarizer---that eliminates edge-die variation effects caused by polishing pressure discontinuities and helps in other ways to preserve delicate ultra-low-k dielectric material structures.
Chipmakers could see their litho- and CMP-inhibited edge yields take a turn for the better with the measurement, inspection, and process uniformity improvements likely to result from these kinds of technologies and alliances.
|
Blogs 
