Solid State Technology articles from April 2006

Solid State Technology archives from April 2006

Resistance at 450mm.(EDITORIAL)(industry's plans on shifting from 300mm to 450mm wafer production(semi conductor))(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... According to the 2005 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), the industry should plan on shifting from 300mm to 450mm wafer production by the year 2012. But adopting the change by this date appears to be overly optimistic,...

Record wafer demand in 2005 causing supply problems.(BUSINESS TRENDS)(Semi, Silicon Manufacturers Group)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Worldwide silicon wafer shipments increased for the fourth straight year in 2005, by about 6%, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG). Wafer revenues grew in 2005 by 8%, slightly ahead of the ~ 6%-7% rate of the overall IC...

Celerity Inc., Milpitas, CA, has purchased Entegris Inc.'s gas delivery business, including recently acquired Mykrolis's mass flow controllers, vacuum gauges, pressure transducers, and other components, for $15.6 million in cash.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Celerity Inc., Milpitas, CA, has purchased Entegris Inc.'s gas delivery business, including recently acquired Mykrolis's mass flow controllers, vacuum gauges, pressure transducers, and other components, for $15.6 million in cash. Celerity also...

Sigrity Inc., Santa Clara, CA, has acquired technology and assets of Synopsys Inc.'s Encore single and multichip IC package design product line.(USA)
April 1, 2006... Sigrity Inc., Santa Clara, CA, has acquired technology and assets of Synopsys Inc.'s Encore single and multichip IC package design product line. A new product (with a new name) incorporating the Encore EDA tool and Sigrity's package design and...

Thermal processing equipment supplier BTU International Inc., North Billerica, MA, has agreed to acquire Radiant Technology Corp.(USA)
April 1, 2006... Thermal processing equipment supplier BTU International Inc., North Billerica, MA, has agreed to acquire Radiant Technology Corp., Fullerton, CA, a supplier of inline near infrared furnaces and dryers primarily used in the solar energy...

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., St. Peters, MO, plans to double its polysilicon capacity over the next three years to approximately 8000 metric tons/year, to meet heavy demand from both semiconductor and solar cell industries. The expansion...

Veeco Instruments Inc.(USA)(Veeco Instruments Inc. expects growth this year)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Veeco Instruments Inc., Woodbury, NY, has formed a process equipment group to market its deposition and etch technologies in the data storage and high-brightness LED markets. The company expects to see 15% growth this year for the $225 million...

Citing the "tremendous investment of development resources" needed to meet requirements for leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing, NEC Electronics Corp., Sony Corp., and Toshiba Corp. have combined their plans to jointly develop system LSI process technologies for the 45nm node.(ASIAFOCUS)
April 1, 2006... Citing the "tremendous investment of development resources" needed to meet requirements for leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing, NEC Electronics Corp., Sony Corp., and Toshiba Corp. have combined their plans to jointly develop system LSI...

Mentor Graphics Corp. and Japanese industry consortium Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC) will jointly develop at-speed delay test methodologies for IC designs in order to improve detection of small delay variations during manufacturing test.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Mentor Graphics Corp. and Japanese industry consortium Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC) will jointly develop at-speed delay test methodologies for IC designs in order to improve detection of small delay variations...

Renesas Technology Corp.(ASIAFOCUS)(Renesas Technology Corp. plans to expand its company)
April 1, 2006... Renesas Technology Corp., Tokyo, Japan, plans to double its system-in-package (SiP) business to 120 million units by 2007 to increase sales to mobile phone makers, according to the Nikkei Business Daily. The company will add capacity at a...

Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, and European R&D consortium IMEC have formed a joint effort to develop 32nm and 22nm-node copper/low-k interconnect processing technologies.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, and European R&D consortium IMEC have formed a joint effort to develop 32nm and 22nm-node copper/low-k interconnect processing technologies. Under the agreement, IMEC will install Applied equipment...

German equipment supplier Steag Hama Tech AG has completed the transfer of 66% ownership from SES Beteiligungs GmbH to Singulus Technologies AG.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... German equipment supplier Steag Hama Tech AG has completed the transfer of 66% ownership from SES Beteiligungs GmbH to Singulus Technologies AG. Five board members have resigned, as well as CEO Stefan Reinick, with no explanation provided by...

In the first achievement under its new "fab lite" business model, Infineon Technologies AG has produced sample 65nm chips for its baseband and RF CMOS single-chip-integration efforts.(EUROFOCUS)
April 1, 2006... In the first achievement under its new "fab lite" business model, Infineon Technologies AG has produced sample 65nm chips for its baseband and RF CMOS single-chip-integration efforts. Samples were produced at both IBM in East Fishkill, NY, and...

IBM and JSR show immersion lithography can be pushed beyond 32nm.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2006... IBM, JSR, and JSR's US operation, JSR Micro, have printed 29.9nm patterns to provide proof-of-concept that high-index materials can extend immersion lithography beyond the 32nm node. Researchers used JSR's organic fluid with an index of 1.64,...

Tohoku U., Selete, NIST show neutral particle beam limits plasma damage.(Tohoku University)(National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)
April 1, 2006... Tohoku University, Selete, and the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have demonstrated devices made with Tohoku's low-damage neutral-particle beam plasma etching process that exhibit significantly reduced...

Freescale touts mobility gains with new GaAs MOSFET.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(Freescale Semiconductor has developed a device combining gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor with traditional metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET))
April 1, 2006... Freescale Semiconductor has developed a device combining a gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor with traditional metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) technology, citing the better mobility of GaAs as well as its scaling...

Brion Technologies enters OPC implementation market.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2006... Brion Technologies, a leader in resolution enhancement technology (RET) verification, has announced its new Tachyon OPC+ product that applies optical proximity correction (OPC) to chip designs using the company's computational lithography...

Clean nanolayers of silicon are efficient conductors.(Tech Briefs)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Clean nanolayers of silicon are efficient conductors--until now, scientists believed that ultra-thin layers of silicon were poor conductors of electricity because of charge trapping at the silicon/native oxide layer surface. However,...

New gallium nitride film method beats the heat.(Tech Briefs)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New gallium nitride film method beats the heat--A team of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists has developed a method for growing crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) films at lower temperatures than industry standards. By eliminating the...

New CMP pad optimized for copper barrier removal.(chemical mechanical planarization)
April 1, 2006... Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) processes often must balance ultimate planarization against induced defects. Typically, any change to CMP that improves planarization tends to induce additional defects. For example, the polishing pad...

Encrypting process information for litho-aware OPC models.(DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING)
April 1, 2006... The practice of using design rules to communicate manufacturing capability to the design community failed with the advent of sub-wavelength imaging's recommended and suggested design rules. That's because it is practically impossible for a...

Low-power electrical characterization of CNTs and nanoscale devices.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)
April 1, 2006... Manufacturers of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or other low-power nanoscale devices continue to face challenges as potential uses for these devices grow. One issue is the difficulty of electrically characterizing extremely small circuit elements, not...

Improving 300mm wafer yield using x-ray diffraction inspection.(METROLOGY)
April 1, 2006... Digital x-ray diffraction inspection of bare and patterned 300mm wafers is challenging conventional semi-conductor wafer inspection systems. Digital x-ray imaging for crystallographic defects has the potential to deliver substantial savings in...

Optimizing SU-8 resist to fabricate micro-metallic structures.(case studies of Integrated circuit fabrication)(Cover story)
April 1, 2006... OVERVIEW Conventional precision engineering technologies are reaching their limits concerning minimum feature size and precision demands, so alternative technologies, such as LIGA (from the German acronym: lithographie, galvanik,...

MEMS applications using diamond thin films.(Microelectromechanical systems)
April 1, 2006... OVERVIEW Diamond thin film offers advantages over silicon and other thin-film materials used in micro- and nanofabrication. The technology for depositing high-quality diamond thin films over large-area substrates has only recently become...

Removing sub-50nm particles during blank substrate cleaning.(MASK CLEANING)(Integrated circuit fabrication)
April 1, 2006... OVERVIEW The current International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) requires that all defects [less than or equal to] 32nm on the EUV mask blank and [less than or equal to] 27nm on EUV substrates (i.e., mask blank before the...

Implant process modifications for suppressing WPE.(NEXT-GENERATION PROCESSES)
April 1, 2006... OVERVIEW The threshold voltages of CMOS transistors can vary significantly depending on their proximity to an implant well boundary. This well proximity effect (WPE) is caused by the well implant atoms that scatter laterally from the...

Creating metal and nonmetal nanosystems using conductive jettable inks.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)
April 1, 2006... OVERVIEW There is a great deal of interest in the development of ink-jettable systems for RFID tags and other types of interconnection. This paper reviews the chemistries, processing, and performance of jettable inks based on metals and...

Turbopump can pump up to 2000sccm of argon.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Adixen ATH2300M high-flow maglev turbopump designed for semiconductor etch processes has 2000 liters/ sec performance and is capable of pumping up to 2000sccm of argon for sub-90nm applications. It has five active axes, an automatic...

Ultra-flat, ceramic vacuum wafer chucks.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... These ultra-flat, high-purity ceramic vacuum chucks are three to five times stiffer than glass or metal alternatives. Available in several of this company's materials including UltraSiC silicon carbide, PureSiC CVD silicon carbide, PlasmaPure...

Software suite allows design modeling and analysis.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Virtuoso resolution enhancement technology (RET) suite integrates lithography awareness directly into the previously released Virtuoso custom design platform, a design environment for custom ICs. Designers targeting sub-90nm manufacturing...

Photomask inspection, systems for XRETs.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Starlight-2 next-generation photomask inspection system provides contamination inspection for photomasks, including extreme resolution enhancement technique (XRET) ones, at the 65nm node and below. The system reportedly uses revolutionary...

Mass spectrometer product line.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Agilent 6000 series LC/MS portfolio of chromatography-based mass spectrometry systems includes five classes of instruments: a triple quadrupole (triple quad), a quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF), a single quadrupole, an ion trap, and a...

SiC single-crystal wafer.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The PureBeta-S product fuses high-purity SiC powder technology, a good crystal growth method, and precise machining technology to produce high-quality, high-performance SiC single crystal wafers for high-power, high-frequency devices and...

High-purity optical lens material.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The HPFS 8650 high-purity optical lens material for semiconductor microlithography is designed to support the performance and throughput requirements of polarized 193nm immersion lithography systems. This stable, predictable material exhibits...

Reticle inspection system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The ES-240 automatic inspection system is designed for inspecting reticles, flat panels, and color filters, and for backend inspection of wafers before and after dicing on film. Features include batch loads, multiple illumination modes,...

Multi-axis, x-ray inspection system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Concept FX is a multi-axis, x-ray inspection system with 80/90/130kV x-ray source options, six axes of motion control, ergonomic design, and a no-clamp sample tray for fast load and unload. The x-ray source and detector tilt off-axis in...

GaN-on-diamond semiconductor wafer.(PRODUCT NEWS)(The gallium-nitride uses technology that enables the GaN layer to be atomically attached to a freestanding)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... The gallium-nitride (GaN)-on-diamond Xero Wafer uses technology that enables the GaN layer to be atomically attached to a freestanding, proprietary polycrystalline chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) diamond substrate (25 [micro] m thick). The GaN...

Surface science research instruments.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Nanovea series of surface science research instruments includes nano- and micro-hardness instruments, scratch and adhesion testers, and tribometers. Exclusively integrated in the nano-indentation instrument is the IBIS nano-indentation...

Line of electronic packaging materials.(PRODUCT NEWS)(EPM electronic packaging materials have low outgassing properties to prevent contamination )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... This expanded line of EPM electronic packaging materials have low outgassing properties to prevent contamination and have undergone extensive processing to maintain weight losses of

Wafer-flip module.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... This wafer-flip module, designed for 200-and 300mm wafers, is compatible with both edge-grip and vacuum-paddle end effectors. It has two motors, one for flipping and one for the wafer gripper mechanism. A 180[degrees] rotation of the wafer can...

Compact computed tomography x-ray system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The nanotom high-resolution x-ray analysis system consists of a granite-based CT-construction with a 160kV high-power nanofocus x-ray tube and a special digital detector to reach a voxel resolution of

Fiber-optic laser encoder system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The RLE20 fiber-optic laser encoder system provides subnm nonlinearity and resolution capability of 38pm. Fiber-optics deliver the laser light directly to two measurement axes from a single laser source, eliminating the requirement for multiple...

Ultra-low pressure documenting calibrator.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Micro-Cal model 869 ultra-low pressure documenting calibrator has been designed for air-handling processes in critical environments that require portable, high accuracy, and low-pressure documenting calibration to certify pressure needs....

Precision UVC cure unit.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The SCS Precision UVC ultraviolet cure unit offers full-spectrum UV curing, either integrated with the SCS Precisioncoat or as a stand-alone system. When coupled with either the SCS Precisioncoat or Precisioncoat EL, components move from the...

Residual gas analyzer.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2006... The Qulee quadrupole mass spectrometer with integrated measurement display and control electronics has a removable front-end electronics package. With the electronics removed, the analyzer head can be baked at temperatures up to 250[degrees]C....

The essentials of single-wafer wet processing: selectivity and partnering.
April 1, 2006... Chipmakers are migrating to single-wafer tools, driven by the need for highly reliable processes that can meet the stringent performance and throughput requirements of state-of-the-art fabs. The strategy is not just a function of the toolset,...