
A leading semiconductor foundry has placed an order with Nanometrics for its a ‘UniFire’ 7900 metrology system. The initial system will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2010 to enable the foundry’s transition from development to high volume manufacturing in 2011 of 3D wafer-scale packaging technology.
“The UniFire is an enabling metrology system in the rapidly growing wafer-scale packaging segment and has been adopted by multiple customers for through-silicon-via (TSV) process control, with measurements including critical dimensions (CD), depth and topography,” commented Dr. Michael Darwin, vice president of the UniFire and Materials Characterization groups at Nanometrics. “The deployment of advanced packaging technologies such as TSV and micro-bump formation will enable cost and performance advantages for next-generation devices. These emerging applications provide growth opportunities for Nanometrics, with new manufacturing process steps requiring additional optical metrology solutions.”
The UniFire system, according to the company is capable of high precision measurement of two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures for depth, CD, profile, and film thickness control for advanced device manufacturing processes.