Online information source for semiconductor professionals
New Product: SAFC Hitech ready with phase change memory precursors
Popular articles
Micron moving fast on Hynix in Q208 NAND flash rankings, says iSuppli - 19 August 2008
Numonyx to close California Technology Center - 12 August 2008
Qimonda starts major reorganization: exits PC DRAM market - 13 October 2008
Micron close to Inotera share purchase, says Gartner - 06 October 2008
Applied Materials sees higher CapEx spending for 2009 - 15 August 2008
Product Briefing Outline: SAFC Hitech has made significant progress in developing Germanium Antimony Telluride (GexSbyTez or GST) precursors for use in high volume manufacturing phase change memory (PCM) applications. Extensive development work has been conducted with both the precursors and with the use of conventional Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) techniques to deposit them, resulting in the successful deposition of device-quality GST.
Problem: Until now, PCM materials have generally been deposited by sputtering or other Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) techniques, which are line of sight methods and have inherent weaknesses relating to uniformity of deposition. Vapor phase deposition techniques, such as MOCVD, offer several advantages in relation to GST precursors, in particular, a better step coverage for deposition on patterned substrates, industrial scaling and high compositional control.
Solution: After extensive work to synthesise a number of different chemicals and characterize their physical properties, a combination of sources was found with a much improved match of thermal stability to allow decomposition to the same degree when simultaneously introduced to the deposition reactor chamber. The actual chemicals of choice were found to be Ge(NMe2)4, Sb(NMe2)3 and iPr2Te. With these identified, SAFC Hitech then developed synthesis protocols to allow the isolation of high purity product in both small and large laboratory scale equipment. Recent growth trials have resulted in successful deposition of device-quality GST using nitrogen as a carrier gas.
Applications: Vapor phase deposition techniques, such as MOCVD for phase change memory (PCM) applications.
Platform: Ge(NMe2)4, Sb(NMe2)3 and iPr2Te.
Availability: September 2008 onwards.