Solid State Technology articles from December 2005

Solid State Technology archives from December 2005

A wafer-handling robot upgrade results in reduced wafer scratches.(Web Exclusives)
December 1, 2005... Fabs operating cluster tools from the 1990s frequently report robot-related wafer scratching as a common source of yield loss. When scratching occurs, the probability of killing a die is ~100%. The dominant cause of wafer scratching in these...

Golden Years or Golden Age?(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
December 1, 2005... A familiar refrain from market analysts these days is that the semiconductor industry has "matured." To support L this notion, they point to a number of recent developments, including the consumerization of the market, the commoditization of...

Dataquest ups 2006 projections on stronger demand for backend and litho tools.(BUSINESS TRENDS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Armed with new data and hedged optimism, Gartner Dataquest has updated its July forecast for capital spending for the next several years, and is now projecting some improvement in nearly every equipment sector through 2007. "The underlying...

Rice U. professor Richard Smalley, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the fullerene (or "buckyball"), a spherical 60-carbon-atom molecule, passed away on Oct. 28 after a battle with leukemia.(USA)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
December 1, 2005... Rice U. professor Richard Smalley, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering the fullerene (or "buckyball"), a spherical 60-carbon-atom molecule, passed away on Oct. 28 after a battle with leukemia. In 2000, Smalley pushed...

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.(China)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) aims to achieve $100 million per year in business with Israeli firms by the end of the decade, according to company president and CEO Richard Chang, reported Globes. SMIC already...

Ebara Corp. has licensed IMEC's Rotagoni drying technique, used for water mark-free drying in single-wafer wet-cleaning applications, for use with equipment produced by its precision machinery division.(Japan)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Ebara Corp. has licensed IMEC's Rotagoni drying technique, used for water mark-free drying in single-wafer wet-cleaning applications, for use with equipment produced by its precision machinery division. The process involves dispensing ultrapure...

Samsung Electronics may face scrutiny from South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for an alleged sweetheart deal to supply NAND flash memory to Apple Computer for its iPod nano, according to the Korea Times, citing comments from FTC chairman Kang Chul-kyu during a radio program.(South Korea)
December 1, 2005... Samsung Electronics may face scrutiny from South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for an alleged sweetheart deal to supply NAND flash memory to Apple Computer for its iPod nano, according to the Korea Times, citing comments from FTC chairman...

Praxair Inc., Danbury, CT, said that its electronics division has offered to purchase Alcan Inc.'s high-purity (5N) aluminum refining and casting operation in Mercus, France, to bolster materials for use in producing sputtering targets for semiconductor manufacturing, and expand its market in flat-panel manufacturing alongside its gases business.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Praxair Inc., Danbury, CT, said that its electronics division has offered to purchase Alcan Inc.'s high-purity (5N) aluminum refining and casting operation in Mercus, France, to bolster materials for use in producing sputtering targets for...

AMD.(EUROFOCUS)(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... AMD's 300mm Fab 36 in Dresden, Germany, officially opened for business as of Oct. 14, two years after groundbreaking began. Shipments of 90nm-based products are expected to start in 1Q06, with 65nm production beginning by the end of 2006, and...

Don't miss ...(WORLD NEWS)
December 1, 2005... January 24, 2006--Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference--San Jose, CA. Presenters at Semico Research Corp.'s conference on "Technology for New Markets" will include Jim Feldhan, president, Semico; Mike Polcari, president and CEO, SEMATECH; and...

Sematech finds first low-k material to pass screening for 45nm.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
December 1, 2005... SEMATECH has reported it has found found a low-k material that passes all its screening tests for 45nm. The two-level metal test structure built with Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials' spun-on Zirkon has a k-effective value of 2.5, meeting the...

EUV lithography takes shape at ASML.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(extreme-ultraviolet)
December 1, 2005... Will 13.5nm extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography be ready for production by 2009 as the semiconductor industry moves to 32nm half-pitch device features? With many technical hurdles still to be surmounted, there are plenty of skeptics,...

Managing process-design interactions in the nano era.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
December 1, 2005... Managing process-design interactions becomes an ever-greater problem in the nanometer era of IC fabrication, resulting in design problems and yield losses. An example of this general trend was shown by Cypress Semiconductor researchers at the...

Biotechnology enables high-quality polysilicon film on glass.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Researchers at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Japan say they've made high-quality polysilicon film on glass with carrier mobility matching that of single-crystal silicon by wrapping the seed crystals in protein. A...

Mitsui High-tec replaces package substrate with etched copper.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Mitsui High-tec proposes replacing expensive organic package substrate with a sheet of etched copper-lead frame alloy, to make a package with close to the high pin count of a ball grid array package, at close to the low price of a quad flat...

FSI International, Inc.: innovation collaboration. Sharing knowledge globally and supporting locally. FSI surface conditioning expertise.(CORPORATE PROFILE)
December 1, 2005... ON PARTNERING "Our strategy is to advance fundamental surface conditioning technologies and work with our customers--in their fabs--to optimize and integrate. This has resulted in over 200 IC makers in 20 countries partnering with FSI for...

Patterning neurons-on-chip devices using microcontact printing.(EMERGING TECHNOLOGY)(Cover Story)
December 1, 2005... Growing neurons on a chip surface holds great promise for brain research. Recently, a printing technique was developed that allows alignment and combination of different chemical patterns on a chip surface, which can be used to control the...

Using AFM to enhance MOCVD-grown OE devices.(COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTORS)(Atomic force microscopy)(Metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition)(optoelectronic)
December 1, 2005... Metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition (MOCVD) has steadily progressed from small-scale materials research to a mass production technology, enabling such complex optoelectronic (OE) devices as laser diodes and ultrahigh-brightness...

Genuine Cabot Tantalum Targets.(CORPORATE PROFILE)(Cabot Supermetals)(Company Profile)
December 1, 2005... Cabot Supermetals, a business unit of Cabot Corporation, is a leader in the technology and production of tantalum and niobium for the electronics and microelectronics industries Assured Source of Tantalum Supply Cabot Supermetals is...

Semiconductor suppliers turn to DFM at nanometer nodes.(DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING)
December 1, 2005... Design decisions made early in IC development can either complicate or alleviate a growing number of manufacturing challenges in advanced process technologies as feature sizes shrink well below 130nm. Moreover, the proliferation of third-party...

VALQUA: Value & Quality".(CORPORATE PROFILE)(VALQUA America Inc.)(Company Profile)
December 1, 2005... What Does "VALQUA" Mean to You? VALQUA Profile Founded in 1927, VALQUA is a composite name derived from combining "VALue" and "QUAlity", both of which it has been delivering globally for over 70 years. VALQUA has been developing...

An in-process strategy for defect-free CPL masks.(PHOTOMASKS)
December 1, 2005... OVERVIEW The masks required for chromeless phase lithography can be successfully inspected for transparent defects and repaired by existing technology. An in-process inspection and repair strategy that promises to ensure shipment of...

Using DFM hot-spot analysis for predicting resist patterns.(SOFTWARE)
December 1, 2005... OVERVIEW As process tolerances decrease, significant yield losses are observed specifically due to differences between the design layout and how the resist actually prints on the wafer. To reduce cycle time and costs, engineers responsible...

J.T.Baker[R]: Engineered for the future[TM].(CORPORATE PROFILE)(Company Profile)
December 1, 2005... Corporate Overview Mallinckrodt Baker, Inc., is a manufacturer of high purity chemicals and related products and services sold under two well-known and respected brand names--J.T.Baker[R] and Mallinckrodt[R] Laboratory Chemicals. These...

Preventive maintenance measures for contamination control.(WASTE/EFFLUENT HANDLING)
December 1, 2005... OVERVIEW High concentrations of corrosive and toxic gases can be emitted from metal etch chambers and downstream pipelines during preventive maintenance. Particle bursting incidents can also occur after pipes are disconnected from...

Advanced prototyping using step-and-flash imprint.(semiconductor industry)
December 1, 2005... OVERVIEW Developments in step-and-flash imprint lithography have enabled the support of advanced device and process prototyping with mix-and-match overlay capability compatible with photolithography tools. Work is ongoing to improve the...

ASML's Twinscan XT:1700i scanner.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Twinscan XT:1700i system is a 193nm immersion scanner capable of volume chip production at the 45nm node, with a numerical aperture of 1.2 and throughput of 122wph. The catadioptric lens design combines refractive components with mirrors to...

JEOL USA Inc.'s JAMP-9500F microprobe.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The JAMP-9500F field-emission scanning Auger microprobe achieves a minimum probe diameter of 3nm for SEI and 8nm for Auger imaging, with analytical resolution 10x the spatial resolution of x-ray systems, making it suitable for identifying...

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates' VIISta HC implanter.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The VIISta HC single-wafer ion implanter is designed for low-energy implant applications in sub-90nm processing. Dual-magnet ribbon beam architecture allows for a simple one-dimensional wafer scan, and achieves low particle performance compared...

Novellus's Inova NeXT deposition tool.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Inova NeXT 300mm metallization system for copper/barrier seed applications integrates both physical-vapor deposition and ion-induced atomic-layer deposition, laying tantalum nitride and other metals as a highly conformal and ultrathin...

FEI Co.'s Titan 80-300 S/TEM.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Titan 80-300 scanning/transmission electron microscope, dedicated to corrected microscopy, yields atomic-scale imaging with TEM information limits [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Suss MicroTec's NPS300 stepper.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The NPS300 nanopatterning stepper is available as a manual-load or fully automated system, with up to 300mm wafer handling and automated template pickup that allows different templates to be printed on the same wafer. It achieves sub20nm...

Tokyo Electron's Telius SP etch/ metrology system.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Telius SP etch system features an etch reactor with integrated metrology to offer wafer-by-wafer measurement for critical dimensions. It also provides profile information for fault detection and process control for advanced dielectric and...

OnWafer technologies' MaskTemp SensorPlate wireless sensor.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The MaskTemp SensorPlate employs unintrusive techniques to monitor critical process zones for photomask makers. The processing/ collection module, sensors, and power plant are integrated into a standard 6x6 maskblank for plasma etch, resist...

KLA-Tencor's Puma 9000 inspection tool.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Designed for sub-90nm nodes, the Puma 9000 can be extended beyond traditional laser scattering applications to some critical etch layers, complementing brightfield technology. Streak technology combines a linear multipixel sensor with a...

Mattson Technology's Aspen III eHighlands dry strip system.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Aspen III eHighlands dry strip system is designed for frontend and backend processes, including photo-resist strip over low-k materials. It features an inductively coupled plasma source and bias capability that independently controls ion...

Oxford NanoScience's 3DAP 3Dprobe.(TOP PRODUCTS of 2005)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The laser three-dimensional atom probe (3DAP) provides atomic-scale analysis of semiconductor structures by evaporating individual atoms from materials samples in an ultrahigh-vacuum chamber at cryogenic temperatures ( [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

Local collaboration required for global nanotech competitiveness.(INDUSTRY FORUM)
December 1, 2005... Developers of nanotechnology are facing a conundrum. On one hand, new nanotechnology-based products have been produced and commercialized, yet on the other hand, the understanding of the underlying properties of nanoscale structures and...