Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials has introduced the Applied ‘Tetra’ Reticle Clean, which it claims is the industry’s only wet clean system that delivers damage-free, >99% particle removal efficiency for 32nm-and-beyond photomasks. The Tetra Reticle Clean system is said to set a new standard for productivity, offering up to four times the throughput of any competing system. 

Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials has introduced the ‘Applied Aera2’ Mask Inspection system that is designed to handle leading-edge photomask inspection and qualification tasks at the 45nm node and below, including double patterning. The Aera2 uses sophisticated aerial imaging technology to immediately see how the pattern on the mask will appear on the wafer. The system detects defects according to their impact on the wafer, filtering out the large number of non-printing defects that plague conventional mask inspection systems. Applied Materials claims that the Aera2 system addresses all mask shop inspection applications and provides more than twice the throughput of any competing system. 

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor has launched its latest mask inspection technology that provides both the versatility in a single system to find all defects on a mask and the facility to show the defects that will print on the wafer. The ‘Wafer Plane Inspection’ (WPI) system is designed to overcome yield-critical 32nm mask defect challenges while operating up to 40 percent faster than previous inspection systems, potentially reducing the percentage of total mask manufacturing time devoted to inspection. WPI technology is undergoing advanced beta testing in conjunction with leading chipmakers in the U.S. and Taiwan. WPI-equipped systems have been shipped to multiple customers. 

Product Briefing Outline: Toppan Photomasks has introduced a new DFM tool that will shorten cycle time and reduce risk in chip design through an exception dispositioning process for identifying and analyzing defects and design errors. The tool was developed in collaboration with Anchor Semiconductor, Inc. and is an extension of that company’s ‘NanoScope’ DFM platform. It allows designers and tapeout engineers to review “exceptions” found during the processing of customer data and masks. 

Product Briefing Outline: Carl Zeiss SMT has announced the completion of their final design - ‘PROVE’ - for the next generation Photomask Registration and Overlay Metrology system, which was developed in collaboration with SEMATECH. PROVE will allow for the production of more advanced photomasks with substantially improved image placement accuracy, according to the company. 

Product Briefing Outline: Molecular Imprints, Inc. (MII) has introduced the ‘Imprio’ 300, which incorporates improvements in automation, tool throughput and overlay performance. The company claims that the Imprio 300 represents the industry's highest resolution and lowest cost-of-ownership (CoO) patterning solution for IC prototyping and process development at the 32nm node and beyond. 

Product Briefing Outline: Agilent Technologies has announced the availability of deep-UV optical coating, offering long-lifetime optics that address the growing need for highly accurate and reliable beam delivery in leading-edge semiconductor photolithography systems. 

Product Briefing Outline: Pixer Technology has launched ‘Galileo,’ which it claims to be the industry’s first high speed, high resolution DUV metrology tool that enables measurement of DUV transmission with a 0.1 percent resolution limit and is sensitive to transmission changes of 0.01 percent. The tool is for use on advanced mask blanks at the 45nm node and below. 

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor has launched a new family of reticle inspection systems that takes into consideration the different needs of logic and memory fabs, as well as different mask generations. These include the ‘TeraFab SLQ-2X,’ which is designed for leading-edge logic fabs. The ‘TeraFab Q-3X’ is designed for multiple-die re-qualification and incoming quality control (IQC) applications common to memory fabs, and the ‘TeraFab SLQ-1X,’ which offers a lowest cost of ownership (CoO) alternative, is suited to go/no-go functions for single-die inspection typical of logic fab requalification applications. TeraFab systems are currently undergoing beta testing and evaluation at leading 45nm-generation logic and memory fabs, in Japan, Taiwan and Europe. 

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor and Nikon Corporation have collaborated to develop a set of fully automated overlay correction control system tools called Scanner Match Maker (SMM). Chipmakers can use the tool set to correct overlay errors common to “mix and match” lithography strategies that use lithography tools of varying capabilities and from different suppliers. The SMM technology is aimed at elevating performance of all scanners, enabling chipmakers to reduce their dedication of leading-edge scanners to specific layers, thus cutting overall lithography tool costs at more advanced nodes and extending the lifetime of lithography tools.