Online information source for semiconductor professionals

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor has announced XP, a new upgrade package for 28xx broadband brightfield inspection systems. The XP package is the first commercially available product to give an inspection system access to standard IC design layout files. With access to this information, the inspection system can use knowledge of the defect’s location within the circuit to better estimate its probability of affecting device yield. In addition, XP can use the results of the design-aware wafer inspection to identify features on the mask that may be particularly sensitive to process variations during printing. These and other features of the XP upgrade package are designed to improve the sensitivity and productivity of existing 28xx inspectors and raise the information content of defect results, helping to accelerate identification and resolution of defect issues. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Nova Measuring Instruments has launched ‘MatMaker,’ a Product-Driven Materials Characterization package, which is based on software algorithms and tools refined by Nova’s applications developers over the past 10 years. The company claims the new software changes the way spectral Optical CD is deployed in fabs, significantly reducing application development time and cost while at the same time increasing the measurement accuracy. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Sokudo Co., Ltd. has recently launched the SOKUDO DUO platform, a new concept in photoresist coat/develop track systems that provides customers with the ultra-high productivity needed to optimize leading-edge lithography processing. Incorporating an innovative dual track design, the system simultaneously processes wafers in two lines, claimed to boost throughput to 250-300 wafers per hour (wph), depending on system configuration, while also improving uptime and substantially reducing system footprint. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Peter Wolters GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novellus Systems has developed an advanced polishing technology for its MicroLine AC 1500-P³ and AC 2000-P³ double-sided silicon wafer polishing (DSP) systems that will meet the lithography requirements for semiconductor device manufacturing at 22nm and beyond. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: ExpressSolutions starts by identifying and understanding a customer’s requirements for a specific process and ends with the implementation of an optimized wafer transfer system. By using Crossing’s modular ‘ExpressConnect’ automation solutions, ExpressSolutions delivers custom configurations that reduce overall cost and time-to-market while maintaining OEM differentiation at the process level. As part of the offering, ExpressSolutions facilitates the design, system integration and documentation of a complete wafer automation platform and its ongoing support. This allows customers to leverage internal engineering resources and achieve reduced acquisition costs, reduced inventory build-up and benefit from low platform support costs. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Applied Materials, has launched its Applied ‘Endura CuBS RFX’ PVD system, designed for copper barrier/seed deposition and qualified for 32 and 22nm production by logic and flash memory manufacturers. The system sequentially deposits the Ta(N)/Ta barrier followed by the Cu seed layer under high-vacuum conditions. Integration of the complete sequence, including the Applied’s Aktiv Preclean [chamber or process], on the Endura platform is said to improve film adhesion and oxide-free interfaces, while preserving k-value integrity for low via resistance and high device reliability. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor and Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) have introduced the ‘AcuShape,’ a new modeling and library-generation package to meet optical critical dimension metrology requirements for the 32nm node and below. The new software package enables metrology engineers in IC fabs to measure the dimensions of 3D logic and memory structures, such as FinFETs, bulb RCATs, and structures created by the advanced patterning technique called spacer pitch splitting. It is designed to operate on KLA-Tencor’s stand-alone optical critical dimension platform, ‘SpectraCD’, and Timbre Integrated Metrology (IM) CD systems. AcuShape has been shipped to several memory, logic and foundry fabs in the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where it is being used to measure production wafers and provide early learning on advanced R&D structures. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Rudolph Technologies is launching its ‘MetaPULSE’-G thin-film measurement tool optimized specifically for copper damascene processes at 45nm through 22nm technology nodes and copper via fill in new 3D IC applications. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Novellus has developed a suite of 32nm dielectric films which are claimed to significantly reduce the transmission of UV radiation to the critical copper-dielectric interface, maintaining a compressive stress in this region and hence device reliability. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: KLA-Tencor has introduced the next-generation in-situ plasma etch wafer temperature measurement product, the ‘EtchTemp SensorWafer.’ The newest SensorWafer from KLA-Tencor’s SensArray division captures the effect of the process environment on production wafers and offers new capabilities to robustly characterize the high-power, high-frequency etch recipes proliferating at 65nm nodes and below. The EtchTemp SensorWafer enables etch engineers to further visualize, diagnose, and control their processes and process tools, through the significantly increased process measurement capabilities. Read more >>