Online information source for semiconductor professionals

Qcept Technologies, Inc. announced that Soitec has adopted the ChemetriQ 3000 non-visual defect (NVD) inspection system. The announcement comes after some months of collaborative effort. The ChemetriQ had to meet Soitec’s strict return-on-investment and production-worthiness standards and after a successful tool evaluation and subsequent order, both parties are to take part in an ongoing SOI application development effort that focuses on extending the use of Qcept's technology in existing inspection applications, developing new applications, quality and final yield of Soitec’s SOI wafers.

Christophe Maleville, Vice President of the SOI Products Platform at Soitec commented, "Qcept's ChemetriQ inspection technology offers unique insight into the condition of incoming bare wafers, as well as our own manufacturing process, by enabling us to find potential yield issues that we otherwise couldn't detect. This solution provides an added level of quality assurance for our end products."

Qcept’s ChemetriQ system is installed at Soitec’s Bernin II 300mm SOI production fab and is currently being used for incoming quality control of bare silicon wafers and process monitoring of SOI wafers.

"NVDs are an increasing yield concern for wafer and IC manufacturers alike as tighter process tolerances are required and new materials are introduced," stated Erik Smith, President of Qcept Technologies. "This validation, along with our success at major IC manufacturers, is testament to the growing awareness of the need for NVD inspection as part of a total yield management strategy for both wafer and IC fabrication."

The ChemetriQ is claimed to offer rapid, full-wafer, inline detection of NVDs, like organic and inorganic residue, metallic contaminants, process-induced charging, watermarks and other non-visual residue defects that are undetectable by optical inspection systems. It is sensitive to 5E9 atoms/cm2 - exceeding the requirements in the ITRS for metallic contamination detection down to the 22nm node.