Solid State Technology articles from August 2007

Solid State Technology archives from August 2007

Separating systematic from random defects at 65nm and 45nm nodes.(METROLOGY)
August 1, 2007... Defect inspections during process development oft en result in [10.sup.5] to [10.sup.6] defect counts on a single wafer. The traditional method of reviewing a random sample on the SEM makes it difficult to identify important systematic defects...

Chipmakers, consortia reveal HK+MG integration.(VLSI SYMPOSIUM REPORT)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... The recent VLSI Symposium meeting revealed there will be many different solutions for production implementation of hafnium-based oxides at the 45nm node and beyond, with Hf-based dielectric k values varying from a "medium" k (8-12) up to a true...

Skin in the game.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... The semiconductor industry continues to promise greater rewards, with compound annual growth rates forecasted to be in the high single digits for many years to come. But many companies will not be able to survive the growing risks inherent in...

SIA pares chip outlook, blames ASPs.(BUSINESS TRENDS)(Semiconductor Industry Association)(average selling prices)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Joining other industry groups and analysts, the SIA has significantly scaled back its expectations for the semiconductor industry, now projecting just 1.8% growth this year ($252 billion). [GRAPHIC OMITTED] The big problem has been...

Synova and Disco Hi-Tec Europe GmbH will jointly develop a hybrid high-throughput dicing tool.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Synova and Disco Hi-Tec Europe GmbH will jointly develop a hybrid high-throughput dicing tool using Synova's Laser Microjet (LMJ) water-jet-guided laser technology and Disco's blade-saw dicing systems.

Silterra and European R&D consortium IMEC have extended their partnership.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Silterra and European R&D consortium IMEC have extended their partnership to create a foundry-compatible 90nm CMOS process technology, based on IMEC's process, with intention to scale to 65nm, and will develop a 110nm derivative in parallel.

SVTC Technologies (nee the Silicon Valley Technology Center) and TSMC have formed an "incubation program".(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd.)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... SVTC Technologies (nee the Silicon Valley Technology Center) and TSMC have formed an "incubation program" to encourage development of "novel silicon ideas" in SVTC's 200mm fab environment and smooth potential transfer of those technologies to...

Texas Instruments.(USA)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Texas Instruments says it will incorporate a hafnium-based (HfSiON) high-k dielectric material in "later versions" of its high-performance 45nm chips. TI's first 45nm device (a wireless chip) will be sampled later this year for production in...

Nanometrics Inc. says it has sold its Yosemite CD-SEM technology.(USA)(SNU Precision Co. Ltd.,)(Soluris Inc)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Nanometrics Inc. says it has sold its Yosemite CD-SEM technology, acquired from Soluris Inc. in March 2006, to Korean chip equipment firm SNU Precision Co. Ltd., and its DiVA series of IV instruments (acquired last year from Accent Optical...

Applied Materials.(USA)
August 1, 2007... Applied Materials has acquired privately held HCT Shaping Systems SA, a supplier of precision wafering systems used principally in manufacturing crystalline silicon (c-Si) substrates.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.(USA)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has opened its new 300mm NAND flash memory wafer plant in Austin, TX. The $3.5 billion facility will initially focus on 16Gbit flash chips and 50nm process technologies, and ramp to 60,000 wafers/month output by...

Four Taiwanese test/packaging houses--ASE, Greatek Electronics, SPIL, and Walton Advanced Engineering--have gained approval.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Four Taiwanese test/packaging houses--ASE, Greatek Electronics, SPIL, and Walton Advanced Engineering--have gained approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to do lead-frame base packaging in mainland China.

Hynix Semiconductor.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Hynix Semiconductor will migrate its 60nm NAND flash to 57nm production at its 200mm fabs in 3Q07 to cut costs by around 20%, according to Digitimes, and plans to introduce 48nm NAND flash in 1Q08.

Silterra.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Driven by demand for display drivers, Silterra says it will move to mass production using 0.16 [micro]m processes in 3Q07, increase high-voltage capacity by 30% in 4Q, and pilot the technology on its aluminum-based 0.13 [micro]m process by...

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. says it has begun the "world['s] first" mass production of 45nm LSI chips at its factory in Uozu, central Japan, using ArF immersion lithography (NA>1) and multilayer wiring using low-k dielectrics.

STATS ChipPAC Ltd.(ASIAFOCUS)
August 1, 2007... STATS ChipPAC Ltd. says it will sell certain assembly and test assets for its discrete power packages to China's Ningbo Mingxin Microelectronics Co. Ltd.

Tezzaron Semiconductor says it is ramping its 2D "3T-iRAM".(ASIAFOCUS)
August 1, 2007... Tezzaron Semiconductor says it is ramping its 2D "3T-iRAM" line of 72Mbit memory devices on Chartered Semiconductor's 0.13 [micro]m process technology.

Wacker Chemie AG.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Thanks to continued demand from the solar industry, Wacker Chemie AG says it will spend an estimated 400 million [euro] (US $531.8 million) to expand polysilicon production at its site in Burghausen, Germany, to 21,500 metric tons/year. First...

Germany's Elmos Semiconductor, a mixed-signal ASIC provider.(EUROFOCUS)(application-specific integrated circuit)(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Germany's Elmos Semiconductor, a mixedsignal ASIC provider, has signed a multiyear assembly service agreement with Advanced Interconnect Technologies (AIT), and will transfer its IC assembly and supporting equipment from Holland to an AIT...

Intel promotes computation lithography capabilities.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
August 1, 2007... Intel typically uses its annual "Research Day" to disclose potential commercial applications of its technologies, but the event held June 20 also contained a demonstration of the way Intel's technology advances the chipmaker's own electronics...

Applied's new mask etcher carves a niche at 45nm.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
August 1, 2007... As use of aggressive OPC proliferates on masks for 45nm manufacturing and beyond, etch requirements for CD uniformity (CDU) and CD bias are becoming more stringent and applying to more chip levels. Addressing the requirements on CDU, etch bias,...

IITC 2007: Airgaps and chip-stacks.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(International Interconnect Technology Conference)
August 1, 2007... Airgaps and 3D-stacks were the big news from the 10th International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC, June 4-6, San Francisco, CA). Aside from two major presentions--IBM showed rhodium (Rh) electrochemical deposition (ECD) for [less...

Growing market for LEDs fuels need for advanced abatement systems.(COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTORS)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW As the volume of compound semiconductor (CS) processing ramps up, driven primarily by demand for new light emitting diode (LED) products, manufacturers must deal with a variety of process gas abatement challenges....

Ask the expert.(Brief article)
August 1, 2007... Q How do I meet various technology node requirements without signi.cant changes to my low-k process? A Extending existing low-k processes to next generation technology nodes is a challenge faced by many of our customers. To meet this need,...

Properties of octadecaborane-based ULE boron implants.(COVER ARTICLE: IMPLANT)(Ultra-low energy)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Ultra-low energy (ULE) implants of octadecaborane ([B.sub.18][H.sub.22]) are extremely effective and productive for sub-45nm ultrashallow junction (USJ) formation, uniquely forming an amorphous layer due to the implanted...

A variable batch size DCS nitride process using low-temperature LPCVD.(THERMAL PROCESSING)(low-pressure chemical vapor deposition)(distributed control system)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The deposition temperature of low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) [Si.sub.3] [N.sub.4] using DCS/N[H.sub.3] chemistries has dropped to 630[degrees] C vs. a traditional temperature >730 [degrees] C to meet the...

Biomedical applications using magnetic nanoparticles.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The ability to make magnetic particles the size of biological functional units, such as proteins, enzymes, and DNA, has opened up new ways to interact with the biological world. Activating these magnetic nanoparticles with...

Quantifying ALD technologies for high aspect ratio structures.(ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITION)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Simple quantitative approaches show likely trends for systematic analysis of atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes in narrow-gap implementation. A fundamental modeling parameter may be de. ned for an effective deposition...

Resilience, industry growth put FPD plants on fast track.(ASIA-PACIFIC SECTION: TAIWAN)(flat panel displays)
August 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Taiwan began its march to industrial preeminence in a very different era--one in which its low labor costs enabled it to draw manufacturing investment from other countries in Asia, Europe, and the US, where manufacturing had...

Inspection system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Puma 9150 inspection system features optical modes that enable capture of a broad range of yield-critical defects for 45nm production. The system provides high darkfield production throughputs and enhanced...

Dry vacuum pump for medium vacuum applications.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The XtraDry dry vacuum pump is suitable for all medium vacuum applications down to [10.sup.-1] mbar where there is a need to pump dry, inert, and nonreactive gases. Operated as either a stand-alone or backing pump, XtraDry operates free of...

Cluster tools.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Alcatel AMS 3200/AMS 4200 cluster tools provide recent process capabilities in DRIE for etching silicon materials and glass-like materials, as well as PECVD solutions for Si[O.sub.2] and [Si.sub.3][N.sub.4]...

Gas abatement system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The Helios 6 gas abatement system can be used for high hydrogen flow processes, such as Si and SiGe epitaxy, LPCVD tungsten and compound semiconductor MOCVD, has six inlets for process gases, plus an additional inlet for gas box purges or other...

Single-wafer cleaning system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The SS-3100 300mm single-wafer cleaning system features an ~15% smaller footprint than its predecessor and incorporates a newly developed high-speed wafer transfer system for processing of 300 wafers/hr. The system is equipped with eight...

Table-top SEM microscope.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The Phenom microscope bridges the gap between optical and scanning electron microscope (SEM) technologies. Operated via its touch screen, the microscope can be used in many locations and does not require specialized facilities or highly skilled...

Microscope inspection.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The NAT-31 42X-540X microscope inspection system witha Universal Serial Bus 2.0 camera resolves [less than or equal to] 1[micro]m features when added to this company's probe station. The system's zoom optics have a 0.7x-4.5x objective lens that...

Post-litho pattern enhancement system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The 2300 Motif post-lithography pattern enhancement system is designed for production of next-generation feature sizes using current lithography technology. Employing a proprietary plasma-assisted process, the new system delivers controlled...

Vision inspection.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The SPM ProberStation 150 combines 3D inspection and modern optical microscopy in a vision inspection system for fast, repeatable AFM and SPM studies. Built on a stable granite stage, the station is said to virtually eliminate undesired...

Flow ratio controller.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The Delta II flow ratio controller measures, divides, and controls user-specified ratios of mixed gas flows to multiple zones or chambers for optimum process uniformity and repeatability. It reportedly features a wider dynamic ratio control...

Particle counters.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The HSLIS M65 UL1604-compatible particle counters allow continuous, realtime monitoring of fluid particle contamination levels in Class I, Division II environments. It also measures particles in solvents, chemicals, and DI water. Sizing...

Macro defect inspection.(PRODUCT NEWS)
August 1, 2007... The NSX 100 automated macro defect inspection system is designed to provide inspection for the back-end manufacturing environment and for front-end quality assurance. NSX inspection tools detect macro defects (defects =0.5[micro]m) that can be...

Will RDRs lead to a resurgence of in-house design tools?(INDUSTRY FORUM)
August 1, 2007... In many ways, it was a lot easier in the 1960s and 1970s, before disaggregation. Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) had ownership of all the technologies that were needed to design and manufacture integrated circuits: device and process...