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Product Briefing Outline: Takumi Technology Corporation today announced the availability of its new layout optimization tool - the Takumi Enhance-RO - for automated enforcement of recommended rules and critical area optimization. With Takumi Enhance-RO, Takumi's layout optimization suite now offers complete solutions to address issues that affect parametric yield as well as eliminating catastrophic defects. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Xyalis has launched its GTmask suite, which, it is claimed, is a fully integrated mask date prep solution dedicated to complex wafer masks. Based on Xyalis’ existing tools, GTmask offers new capabilities fully meeting mask teams’ demands, covering wafer assembly and floor-planning for chip arrays, multi-project wafers and multi-layer reticles; CMP metal filling; automatic frame generation; and optimized GDSII and jobdeck files generation. The GTmask tool suite is part of Xyalis’ product strategy aiming at establishing direct links between process data management tools and SQL-based administration databases. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

Product Briefing Outline: Timbre Technologies Inc., a Tokyo Electron-owned company, has announced the introduction of their next generation Profiler Application Server, PAS-T4, used to process optical measurements. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>