Process characterization equipment supplier Rudolph Technologies has entered the back-end packaging sector of the semiconductor industry with its first shipment of its MetaPULSE metrology system. The shipment took place in Q4’11 to an unnamed customer, said to be a major IC manufacturer, and the tool has since been installed at the customer’s site.
The system conducts measurements of under-bump metallization (UBM) and redistribution layers (RDL) in advanced packaging applications in the back-end of the IC manufacturing process. MetaPULSE is said to provide fast, accurate measurements of metal interconnect and other opaque materials in front-end wafer processing applications, and with this new back-end application, a new market is being opened for the tool.
“We are taking a well-established technology into a new marketâ??advanced packaging is a rapidly-growing area of IC manufacturing, and represents a significant market opportunity for advanced metrology systems,” said Tim Kryman, Rudolph’s director of product management for metrology.