Solid State Technology articles from April 2008

Solid State Technology archives from April 2008

SST on the Scene: exclusive video from the 2008 SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference.(Web Exclusives)
April 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Solid State Technology magazine's Senior Technical Editor Debra Vogler asks industry thought leaders--in DFM, lithography, maskmaking, and design--to comment on high-index immersion, defectivity, readiness of EUV,...

It's springtime for creative engineers.(Editorial)
April 1, 2008... It's springtime for engineers in electronics, computing, and chip architecture. That was the message of a stimulating talk by Paolo Gargini, Intel Fellow and guiding light for the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, at the...

SICAS: capacity, production slow in 4Q; utilization cracks 90%.(BUSINESS TRENDS)(Industry overview)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Worldwide semiconductor capacity and output both slowed significantly in 4Q07, but for the first time in a year and a half factory utilization rates crept up above the benchmark 90% level. Total IC capacity rose 1.2% vs. 3Q and 12.4% vs. 4Q06...

KLA-Tencor.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... KLA-Tencor has agreed to buy ICOS Vision Systems for about 316.9M [euro](US $465M) in cash. For KLAC, the deal provides "a significant presence" in semiconductor packaging inspection, and inroads into growth sectors such as LED lighting and...

Synova says it has joined a research alliance a led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Synova says it has joined a research alliance a led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems to explore how the firm's water s jet-guided laser technology could be used as a manufacturing method to speed processing and improve...

Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials and IBM have agreed to jointly develop patterning materials and processes to enable implant at and below the 32nm node.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials and IBM have agreed to jointly develop patterning materials and processes to enable implant at and below the 32nm node. The two companies also have signed a pact to develop CMP processes for integrating copper...

Carl Zeiss and SEMATECH say they have completed final design for a next-generation photomask registration and overlay metrology system.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Carl Zeiss and SEMATECH say they have completed final design for a next-generation photomask registration and overlay metrology system, dubbed "Prove," that will enable production of advanced photomasks "with substantially improved image...

AMD and IBM say they have produced a working 22mm x 33mm test chip built with 45nm process technologies using EUV lithography for the first critical layer of metal interconnects.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... AMD and IBM say they have produced a working 22mm x 33mm test chip built with 45nm process technologies using EUV lithography for the first critical layer of metal interconnects, pushing beyond previous EUV efforts that involved "narrow field"...

Applied Materials.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... In a regulatory filing, Applied Materials indicated it has received a $1.9B contract to supply equipment and services to an unnamed privately held foreign customer for "multiple solar factories." The deal, centering on AMAT's Sunfab thin-film...

Zygo says it has acquired the assets of Solvision, a Canadian provider of visual inspection equipment.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Zygo says it has acquired the assets of Solvision, a Canadian provider of visual inspection equipment. The deal gives Zygo entry into in-line inspection of flip-chip substrates and packaged ICs; Solvision's Fast Moire Interferometer also offers...

Ibis Technology.(USA)
April 1, 2008... SOI implant tool supplier Ibis Technology has hired investment bank BlueLake Partners to help assess strategic alternatives, including a potential partial or full sale, though the company stressed it has not made any decision or a timeline for...

Credence Systems has sold its diagnostics and characterization business to DCG Systems.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Credence Systems has sold its diagnostics and characterization business to DCG Systems, an independent company led by Israel Niv, former GM of the business and founder of Optonics, an emission-based optical diagnostics and failure analysis...

In a move to narrow its focus to homeland security applications, Implant Sciences says s it is selling its semiconductor subsidiary, Core Systems.(USA)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... In a move to narrow its focus to homeland security applications, Implant Sciences says s it is selling its semiconductor subsidiary, Core Systems. The company's Web site notes the Sunnyvale, CA, facility houses >20 ion implanters for both high-...

Gigaphoton.(USA)
April 1, 2008... Gigaphoton is expanding its presence in the n US with a new subsidiary in Beaverton, OR, slated to open in April. The expansion will replace an existing customer support base nearby, and complement other domestic sites in Fishkill, NY, and...

China is now the world's largest market for RFID in terms of dollar value.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... China is now the world's largest market for RFID in terms of dollar value, accounting for $1.9B (38%) of the $4.96B spent globally on RFID in 2007, mostly driven by national ID cards prior to the 2008 Olympics, notes a report by Research and...

Sharp plans to increase the percentage of internally procured solar cell-grade silicon to stabilize supplies, amid a marketplace "scramble" to secure stockpiles of the raw material, notes the Nikkei daily.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Sharp plans to increase the percentage of internally procured solar cell-grade silicon to stabilize supplies, amid a marketplace "scramble" to secure stockpiles of the raw material, notes the Nikkei daily. Sharp slowed production by 16% in 2007...

The Korean government is making another push to promote overseas sales of domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment, according to local reports.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Korean government is making another push to promote overseas sales of domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment, according to local reports. Intel, AMD, and TSMC(and possibly Infineon and Chartered) are among those invited to meet with...

Israel Growth Partners Acquisition, a Delaware-incorporated holding company, has acquired a majority (51.3%) stake in Israeli wafer inspection toolmaker Negevtech.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Israel Growth Partners Acquisition, a Delaware-incorporated holding company, has acquired a majority (51.3%) stake in Israeli wafer inspection toolmaker Negevtech. For the equipment firm, the deal gives access to IGPAC's ~$55M in trust, to be...

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (nee Fabless Semiconductor Association) and the India Semiconductor Association have agreed to formally support each other's activities.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Global Semiconductor Alliance (nee Fabless Semiconductor Association) and the India Semiconductor Association have agreed to formally support each other's activities and tighten ties among their membership rosters.

The French government is buying about 260M [euro] (US ~$370m) worth of shares in STMicroelectronics (about 10 [euro]/share) from Italian stakeholder Finmeccanica.(EUROFOCUS)(STMicroelectronics N.V.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The French government is buying about 260M [euro] (US ~$370M) worth of shares in STMicroelectronics (about 10/share [euro]) from s Italian stakeholder Finmeccanica, in order to rebalance the French and Italian holdings in the chipmaker and...

Zarlink Semiconductor has sold its analog foundry in Swindon, UK, to a subsidiary of domestic electronics component supplier MHS Electronics--for 1 [euro](~$1.51).(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Zarlink Semiconductor has sold its analog foundry in Swindon, UK, to a subsidiary of domestic electronics component supplier MHS Electronics--for 1 [euro](~$1.51). The actual termsof thedeal indicate Zarlink will pay MHS 2M [euro] ($3.0M) to...

ASMI has rejected another stakeholder's calls to replace its board members, this time from Fursa Alternative Strategies.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... ASMI has rejected another stakeholder's calls to replace its board members, this time from Fursa Alternative Strategies, which months ago boosted its stake in ASMI to more than 9% in an effort to influence change and facilitate a separation of...

IMEC.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... IMEC says it has achieved a record 24.7% efficiency with a single-junction GaAs solar cell grown epitaxially on a Ge substrate, part of work to develop a hybrid monolithic/mechanically stacked triple-junction solar cell.

Bede.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... UK-based Bede, a provider of X-ray metrology tools, said that it had finally received an offer from a suitor after being first approached last summer. However, Bede said that the offer was below current market value, and the company is again...

Clarification.(WORLD NEWS)(Correction notice)
April 1, 2008... In the February 2008 feature, "High-index materials research key to extending immersion lithography," the author inadvertently forgot to reference IBM's Almaden Research Center for the "organic film" containing the discussed nanoparticles at...

Double patterning will challenge litho, metrology, computation.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2008... While 193nm immersion lithography has taken the industry to 45nm, it will get progressively tougher to move below that. Lithographers will struggle with shrinking margins, more metrology and process control, along with extensive computation,...

Tela Innovations lays it all out straight.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(Company overview)
April 1, 2008... Getting the most function out of the least chip area has been the main goal of IC designers since the beginning of the industry. Their creativity gave rise to complex 2D layouts that were shrunk geometrically one generation after another until...

Brion powers up to meet DPT challenges at 32nm-22nm.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2008... At the opening of the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium, Brion Technologies unveiled a more powerful version of its Tachyon Computational Lithography platform and the release of Tachyon DPT, soft ware that allows chipmakers to meet the low...

Gauda harnesses graphical processor units for OPC.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2008... Have you ever wished that computational lithography could be more like a video game? Gauda, a Sunnyvale, CA, startup that decloaked at the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium, is offering to make it so, at least for optical proximity correction...

Molecular Imprints announces 4WPH step and flash imprint tool.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
April 1, 2008... Claiming the ability to print 32nm, 28nm, and 22nm features at 4WPH with 35nm overlay, Molecular Imprints, Inc. (MII) says its latest imprint lithography tool for semiconductor applications, the Imprio 300, introduced at the SPIE Advanced...

Imprint litho forms arrays for new fault-tolerant nanoscale circuits.(BEYOND CMOS)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Extending Moore's Law to 22nm and beyond for logic circuits calls for new concepts in manufacturing processes and device architectures. Fault-tolerance is critical to manufacturing on molecular scales. Nano-imprint...

Hermans leads accelerated MEMS development at IMEC.(Q + A WITH LOU HERMANS, IMEC)(Interview)
April 1, 2008... There's much more going on at the Belgian research center IMEC than the relentless pursuit of Moore's Law and semiconductor process technology scaling. MEMS plays a big role in what IMEC calls its "More than Moore" efforts, centered in the...

Using existing production tools for low-cost thin wafer handling.(CONTAMINATION CONTROL)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW In 2003, NXP CAEN opened a new pilot line dedicated to innovative solutions in system-in-a-package (SIP) on 150mm wafers. For metallization, the challenge was to enable the front- and backside metallization on silicon...

OPC model separability speeds computational lithography.(PATTERNING TECHNOLOGY)(optical proximity correction)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW In low [k.sub.1] lithography, process integration and qualification are of little value without OPC-corrected masks. Robust separable models that permit optics and resists to be modeled independently allow accurate OPC...

Full-wafer post-via wet clean nonvisual defect inspection.(COVER ARTICLE: METROLOGY)(Cover story)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The optimization of wet clean and surface preparation processes is an industry challenge, due in part to the lack of adequate inspection techniques to detect nonvisual defects (NVD). This article describes how a novel,...

Using scanner systematic signatures to enhance OPC modeling.(SIMULATION/MODELING)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW At previous technology nodes, scanner systematic signatures--including illuminator pupil-fill and polarization, lens aberration, lens apodization, and flare--could be ignored without significantly impacting optical...

Compensation for local proximity effects.(LITHOGRAPHY)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Short range proximity effects in mask-making processes require compensation over and above that presently applied to account for other effects such as electron backscattering. Model-based correction of these predictable...

On-the-fly threshold voltage measurement for BTI characterization.(TEST)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Advances in traditional CMOS scaling techniques are reaching their limits, bringing up the need for new materials and novel device designs. Along with these new materials and designs comes a new emphasis on latent...

Coating and deposition for flexible organic electronics.(FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS)
April 1, 2008... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Developers of flexible, printed, and organic electronics (FPOE) products face significant challenges in scaling to true volume production. Coating and deposition play a key role, regardless of the technique used to...

Computational litho platform and advanced DPT solution.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Brion Technologies)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Tachyon 2.5 computational lithography platform and the Tachyon DPT, an advanced double patterning technology (DPT) solution, have been introduced. The DPT allows chipmakers to meet the low k1 requirements for memory and logic devices at...

Next-generation vacuum pump.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Edwards Vacuum)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The iXH series of harsh process vacuum pump products are designed to meet the increasing demands of the emerging processes required for manufacturing at 60nm and smaller design rules. The iXH reportedly helps reduce tool cost-of-ownership,...

Imprint lithography tool.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Molecular Imprints Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Imprio 300 imprint litho tool incorporates improvements in automation, tool throughput, and overlay performance for IC prototyping and process development at the 32nm node and beyond. The tool leverages S-FIL (step and flash imprint...

Optical scatterometry/thin film metrology system.(PRODUCT NEWS)(n&k Technology Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The Gemini optical scatterometry/thin film metrology system for photomasks features twin 50im spots: one for reflectance (R) and one for transmittance (T). Both R and T are measured simultaneously. The transmittance component of the photomask...

Photolithography stepper stores up to 60 reticles.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Azores Corp.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... System improvements to the model 9200 PanelPrinter system include handling as many as 60 reticles on its automated reticle library subsystem, with automatic loading of up to 6 masks/layer. Designed for Generation 4.5 applications, the model...

Dry-break quick disconnects.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Beswick Engineering Company Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... This dry-break quick disconnect connects without any fluid spray or leakage and disconnects with minimal dead volume. The assembly is constructed of stainless steel throughout and weighs only 15 grams. Both internal and external ends are...

Computational litho platform and advanced DPT solution.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2008... The Tachyon 2.5 computational lithography platform and the Tachyon DPT, an advanced double patterning technology (DPT) solution, have been introduced. The DPT allows chipmakers to meet the low k1 requirements for memory and logic devices at...

30/30 air filter.(PRODUCT NEWS)
April 1, 2008... The MERV 8 (ASHRAE 52.2-2007) "30/30" air filter is a high-efficiency pleated panel with reportedly low initial resistance, low maintained resistance to airflow, and a low average pressure drop. The MERV 8 30/30 has a distinctive design that...

3D simulation tool.(PRODUCT NEWS)(Coventor Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... The CoventorWare ARCHITECT module with Scene3D visualization realistically models the behavior of the disparate technologies incorporated in their designs. ARCHITECT is reportedly the only simulation tool available for quickly and accurately...

Riding the wave of CMP.(INDUSTRY FORUM)(Call Management Products Inc.)
April 1, 2008... CMP is rapidly becoming one of the most important and widespread fab processes enabling the continuation of device shrinks. Overall, the total number of CMP operations is expected to grow ~67% from ~0.9 billion unit operations in 2007 to ~1.5...