Solid State Technology articles from February 2007

Solid State Technology archives from February 2007

ISS 2007: bright future after year of "stubborn growth".(2007 ISS REPORT)(Industry Strategy Symposium)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... In spite of slower growth expected for both chips and process tools in 2007, speakers at the Industry Strategy Symposium in Half Moon Bay, CA, projected a very bright upbeat future. Beyond a soft landing with "stubborn growth," as one...

50th Anniversary Web Site.(2007 ISS REPORT)
February 1, 2007... Solid State Technology is celebrating its 50th anniversary with features throughout the year about the past, present, and future of semiconductor manufacturing technology. We will be presenting the thoughts of some of our former editors, our...

New contributing editor.(Solid State Technology ONLINE)
February 1, 2007... Joining us as columnist this month is Katherine Derbyshire, the founder of Thin Film Manufacturing, who has written a piece for our 50th anniversary celebration (p. 57), plus an Emerging Technologies column about the renewed interest in...

Ask the expert.(Air Products and Chemicals Inc.'s subatmospheric gas systems)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Q Are there any alternatives to the standard subatmospheric delivery options for my ion implant gases? A Delivering another solution through innovation, Air Products has developed a cost-effective alternative to traditional subatmospheric...

Weighing nanotech's risk and rewards.(reports)(Editorial)
February 1, 2007... Harnessing the exotic properties of materials at the nanoscale promises huge societal benefits, from the production of clean energy to the treatment of deadly diseases. However, as nanotech development progresses, concerns are growing about the...

Analysts see deja-vu chip growth in 2007, before peak in 2008.
February 1, 2007... Analysts surveyed by SST generally reviewed 2006 as a decent year for the semiconductor industry, if you take away a "bloodbath" in microprocessors and a surprising weakness in ASPs. Holiday electronics sales seem to have been good--not great,...

Elpida Memory Inc. and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC) have agreed to establish a new joint venture that will ultimately operate four 300mm DRAM fabs with 240,000 wafers/month total capacity.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)
February 1, 2007... Elpida Memory Inc. and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC) have agreed to establish a new joint venture that will ultimately operate four 300mm DRAM fabs with 240,000 wafers/month total capacity. The companies laid out plans calling for each...

ASML Holdings has agreed to buy privately held computational lithography software provider Brion Technologies for $270 million (about 203 million [euro]), plus other noncash charges of ~29 million [euro] in 2007.(Brion Technologies )(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... ASML Holdings has agreed to buy privately held computational lithography software provider Brion Technologies for $270 million (about 203 million [euro]), plus other noncash charges of ~29 million [euro] in 2007. Brion, a venture-backed startup...

Dow Corning Corp. and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co. Ltd. (TOK) say they have developed a bilayer photoresist, incorporating Dow's silicon polymer into TOK's photosensitive material, that uses a silicon polymer in the imaging layer to improve etch selectivity, and eliminates the need for a separate hardmask layer.(bilayer photoresist)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Dow Corning Corp. and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co. Ltd. (TOK) say they have developed a bilayer photoresist, incorporating Dow's silicon polymer into TOK's photosensitive material, that uses a silicon polymer in the imaging layer to improve etch...

Evans Analytical Group LLC, Sunnyvale, CA, a provider of surface analysis and materials characterization services, has acquired Advanced Materials Engineering Research and the semiconductor and microelectronics services operations of Materials Analytical Services, which offer a variety of semiconductor microscopy, analysis, and testing services.(Advanced Materials Engineering Research)(Materials Analytical Services)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Evans Analytical Group LLC, Sunnyvale, CA, a provider of surface analysis and materials characterization services, has acquired Advanced Materials Engineering Research and the semiconductor and microelectronics services operations of Materials...

AMD and the state of New York have finalized a two-year window (July 2007-July 2009) to begin groundbreaking for AMD's proposed 300mm wafer fab in the Luther Forest Technology Campus north of Albany.(USA)(Advanced Micro Devices Inc. acquired Avago Technologies)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... AMD and the state of New York have finalized a two-year window (July 2007-July 2009) to begin groundbreaking for AMD's proposed 300mm wafer fab in the Luther Forest Technology Campus north of Albany. Bolstering its high-growth image sensor...

Mercury Computer Systems Inc. and Mentor Graphics Corp. have agreed to jointly develop an integrated electronic design automation platform based on the Cell Broadband Engine processor.(USA)
February 1, 2007... Mercury Computer Systems Inc. and Mentor Graphics Corp. have agreed to jointly develop an integrated electronic design automation platform based on the Cell Broadband Engine processor that can deliver more than an order of magnitude performance...

Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. aims to make a splash in the market for AC/DC offline power conversion applications, with a $200 million tender offer for System General Corp.(System General Corp)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. aims to make a splash in the market for AC/DC offline power conversion applications, with a $200 million tender offer for System General Corp., a Taiwanese supplier of analog power management semiconductors.

The Taiwan government has finally relaxed its restrictions governing the transfer of chip process technology across the strait to China, now down to 0.18[micro]m/200mm operations.(ASIAFOCUS)
February 1, 2007... The Taiwan government has finally relaxed its restrictions governing the transfer of chip process technology across the strait to China, now down to 0.18[micro]m/200mm operations. Long-delayed applications for investment from memory chipmakers...

Shanghai-based Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. has partially decloaked, saying it plans to offer "proprietary etch and chemical vapor deposition systems" targeting the 65nm and 45nm nodes and beyond, with R&D and manufacturing done in-house in Asia.(ASIAFOCUS)
February 1, 2007... Shanghai-based Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. has partially decloaked, saying it plans to offer "proprietary etch and chemical vapor deposition systems" targeting the 65nm and 45nm nodes and beyond, with R&D and manufacturing done...

Sparkling growth in DRAM and foundry business will boost the production value of Taiwan's semiconductor industry to more than 20% in 2006, vs. the global average of ~8.5%, according to The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), under the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute, reported by the Taiwan Economic News.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Sparkling growth in DRAM and foundry business will boost the production value of Taiwan's semiconductor industry to more than 20% in 2006, vs. the global average of ~8.5%, according to The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), under...

Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials.(Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, Microelectronic Technologies)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, Microelectronic Technologies, says it has completed a $30 million expansion at its facility in Chonan, South Korea, which will enable advanced R&D for 193nm photoresists, organic anti-reflectants, and silicon...

United Test and Assembly Center Ltd.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... United Test and Assembly Center Ltd. plans to invest $100 million over the next three years on its operations in Bangkok, including a third plant (UTL3) to house test operations and a distribution center, with production beginning in 2H07. UTAC...

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.(ASIAFOCUS)
February 1, 2007... Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. says it has developed a monolithic 1Gb mobile DRAM memory using 80nm process technology, and expects to ramp to mass production by 2Q07. The company also is sampling 16Gbit NAND flash memory devices made with 50nm...

Elpida Memory Inc.(ASIAFOCUS)(production start-ups)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Elpida Memory Inc. says it has begun mass production of 1Gbit and 512Mbit DDR2 SDRAMs using 70nm process technology at its main fab in Hiroshima, with product shipments expected to start this quarter.

Atmel Corp.(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Atmel Corp. has officially embraced a "fablite" business model, selling off two more fabs (North Tyneside, UK, and Heilbronn, Germany) and significantly reducing manufacturing costs and laying off nearly half its workforce. After recording a...

UK wafer supplier IQE plc has agreed to acquire Singapore's MBE Technology Pte. Ltd., a manufacturer of compound epitaxial wafers.(EUROFOCUS)
February 1, 2007... UK wafer supplier IQE plc has agreed to acquire Singapore's MBE Technology Pte. Ltd., a manufacturer of compound epitaxial wafers, for about $14.9 million, expanding its reach into Asian and wireless markets and establishing dual-source...

STMicroelectronics.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... STMicroelectronics is reorganizing its product segments into three areas, essentially creating a separate flash memory group to address "industry consolidation and financial deconsolidation." Industry watchers speculate the decision to...

ASM International NV.(NuTool business)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... As part of a pledge to restore its frontend operations to profitability, ASM International NV has sold its NuTool business, including copper plating, planarization, and electrochemical mechanical deposition processes, to an unidentified third...

Electron devices meeting goes 3D, low-power.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The 2006 International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco, Dec. 10-13, may be remembered as the start of a trend toward 3D integrated circuits with stacked devices. In addition, while last year's IEDM featured proposed advances in high...

Mears Technologies addresses gate leakage with band engineering process.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
February 1, 2007... A key problem looming for semiconductor manufacturing at the 45nm node and beyond is gate leakage, as there's no high-k/metal gate solution ready to tackle it in a manufacturing environment. However, Mears Technologies recently announced what...

ASML illuminates a dry path to 40nm.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors plots a route to 45nm half-pitch through water immersion lithography for critical levels, but ASML is giving its customers an alternative by request--one that employs familiar dry DUV...

Turning to an old friend, device engineers are reconsidering germanium.(EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
February 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Silicon's dominance of the integrated circuit market is so complete that it's easy to forget that manufacturers ever considered other materials. Yet silicon's success is usually attributed to its stable native oxide and...

High-volume full-wafer step-and-flash imprint lithography.(LITHOGRAPHY)
February 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The step-and-flash imprint lithography (S-FIL) process uses field-to-field drop dispensing of ultraviolet (UV) curable liquids for step-and-repeat patterning for applications where high-resolution mix-and-match overlay...

Scaling and complexity drive LCD yield strategies.(FPDs)(Cover story)
February 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Substrate scaling reduction in the LCD industry has forced each fab generation to be larger--factories are now many football stadiums in size--making contamination control a challenge. Additionally, yield management...

An alternative technology for dose and focus monitoring.(METROLOGY)
February 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW As the lithography process window continues to shrink, it becomes more of a requirement to monitor all aspects of the process. CD and overlay budgets are becoming so small that investigations into the sources of...

Optimizing an operation for world-class maskmaking.(FAB MANAGEMENT)(Industry overview)
February 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The photomask industry has consolidated into a small number of vendors, all competing to be best at what they do as globalization and Moore's Law make their challenges more and more difficult. This article explores the...

Change and silicon: the only constants.(MATERIALS RETROSPECTIVE)(semiconductor industry)(Industry overview)
February 1, 2007... Solid State Technology is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a series of articles throughout the year examining the history of the semiconductor industry. Here in Part One, contributing editor Katherine Derbyshire offers a brief history of...

Dual-chamber PEALD tool.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The Stellar 3000 multichamber single-wafer plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) tool targets PEALD processes for high-k dielectric films for DRAM capacitors and metal-insulator-metal capacitors used in embedded DRAM devices and...

300mm wafer prober.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The Precio automatic 300mm wafer prober incorporates an advanced in-line probe mark inspection technology, based on a new offline high-speed PMI engine, which offers 60% improvement in PMI execution. An auto-leveling feature enables automatic...

193nm ArF excimer laser.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The GT61A ArF excimer laser is for 193nm lithography tools with NA=1.3, offering a repetition rate of 6000 Hz and 30% improvement of spectral bandwidth from its predecessor, the company says. Output is 60W, pulse energy is 10.0 mJ, and spectral...

High-energy ion implanter.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The third-generation VIISta 3000XP single-wafer high-energy ion implanter uses the same single-wafer endstation, integrated loadlock, dosimetry, closed-loop faraday, and control system as the company's flagship medium-current VIISta 900XP. It...

Sacrificial oxide etchant.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The SelectEtch SE-1100 offers selective etching of oxides in advanced ICs for processes such as high aspect ratio capacitor formation, STI oxide etch, and oxide hardmask removal. Film etch rates clock in at 8000[Angstrom]/min for...

Charge erase for memories.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The RapidCure CE for 300mm manufacturing of flash and other nonvolatile memories cuts erase times by up to a factor of 10x with more complete erase than conventional erase technologies, the company claims. Features include proprietary...

High abatement efficiency.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The Marathon 8600 combustion-wet abatement technology can support two three-chamber process tools with a single unit. Its six-inlet design enables PFC abatement of multiple process tools from a single unit. Features include a proprietary...

Wafer thinning system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The WaveEtch G2 high-throughput thinning system can thin up to 300mm substrates (Si, Ge, III-V, II-VI, photovoltaic, MEMS, glass, quartz, etc.) down to 10[micro]m, with total thickness variation of [+ or -] 2%, several times more uniform than...

Optical profiles.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The ninth-generation Wyko NT9300 and NT9800 optical profilers measure topographies from 0.1nm-10mm for noncontact surface metrology for production applications including semiconductor, MEMS, and biomedical devices. Features include a harmonic...

Ion implant material.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The ClusterCarbon implant material for SemEquip's ClusterIon source system is a molecular carbon species for preamorphization implantation and barrier to dopant diffusion for advanced source drain extension formation. It enables higher dopant...

X-ray metrology system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The Crystalx II wide angle X-ray diffraction metrology system provides full wafer measurements of polycrystalline materials typical of 65nm node and below, for crystallographic texture, phase, and relative grain size. A 2D area detector allows...

NAND flash tester.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The T5761 and T5761ES NAND flash memory test systems are built on a tester-per-site architecture to maximize efficiency. A 512-device parallel test capacity offers "dramatically higher" throughput than the previous model, the company says, with...

Litho simulator for MEMS, FPD.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... Layout LAB is a simulation platform for mask aligner lithography that lets users virtually model, redesign, and optimize device layouts and processes including mask layout, exposure tool, and process parameters. It also performs accurate 3-D...

300mm wafer-level prober.(PRODUCT NEWS)
February 1, 2007... The PM300WLR is a dedicated probe system that lets chipmakers obtain critical results about the reliability of the device under test at wafer level, instead of after packaging. It is specifically designed for ergonomic, high-termperature,...

Assessing the challenges of EUV lithography.(INDUSTRY FORUM)
February 1, 2007... It is expected that single-exposure 193nm immersion lithography will reach the ultimate physical limits at the 32nm half-pitch technology node. Extreme-UV lithography (EUVL) and very-high-NA 193nm immersion lithography are both high on the...