Solid State Technology articles from July 2007

Solid State Technology archives from July 2007

Being there: the key to supplying fabs in Asia.(Online features)
July 1, 2007... Given the enormous and rapidly growing consumer market in Asia, it comes as no surprise that chipmakers are expanding operations into these regions to satisfy the local demand for semiconductor devices at the lowest possible price points. But...

Samsung's NAND Flash evolution.(CHIP FORENSICS)(Samsung Company Ltd.)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... In this month's column, Chipworks analyst Dick James examines and compares a series of increasingly dense NAND Flash memory chips from Samsung to see what the company has done to solve specific pressing challenges. Some of the changes in the...

Wanted: better ways to reward CEOs.(EDITORIAL)(chief executive officers)(Editorial)
July 1, 2007... Rising productivity can create prosperity for corporations and individuals. The impact of new technology in boosting productivity was a major contributor to the lengthy economic upturn of the 1990s, according to Alan Greenspan when he was Fed...

Analyst: 193nm requirements, BARCs driving resists market.(BUSINESS TRENDS)(bottom antireflective coatings)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Extending 193nm lithography through the 45nm and 32nm nodes while EUV litho struggles to gain traction will require performance improvements such as multilayer patterning and multiple exposure schemes, and this will drive more use of spin-on...

Intel and STMicroelectronics have formed a new flash memory company combining ST's flash memory assets and Intel's NOR assets, as well as parallel programs on phase-change memory.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Intel and STMicroelectronics have formed a new flash memory company combining ST's flash memory assets and Intel's NOR assets, as well as parallel programs on phase-change memory. Private equity firm Francisco Partners is a minority partner...

Investments to equip fabs will slow to 3% growth in 2007, down from 25% in 2006.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(equipment)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Investments to equip fabs will slow to 3% growth in 2007, down from 25% in 2006, with fab construction investments also in the low single digits (4%-5%), according to SEMI.

"Common Platform Alliance" partners IBM, Chartered, Samsung, Infineon, and Freescale.(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(parnerships of International Business Machines Corp., Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc., Samsung Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Israel Ltd.)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... "Common Platform Alliance" partners IBM, Chartered, Samsung, Infineon, and Freescale plan to extend technology development agreements through 2010 and beyond for 32nm bulk CMOS process technologies.

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments rose just 1.4% during 1Q07 to 2070 millions of sq. in. (MSI).(WORLDWIDE HIGHLIGHTS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments rose just 1.4% during 1Q07 to 2070 millions of sq. in. (MSI), representing the third straight quarter of little or no growth, according to SEMI's Silicon Manufacturers Group.

FSI International.(USA)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... FSI International says it has received a US patent for a method that combines etching and rinsing in a single immersion tank, eliminating wafer defects caused by wafer exposure.

Intel.(USA)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Intel says that its 45nm processors will be its first to incorporate 100% lead-free packaging designs, using a tin/silver/copper alloy, and its 65nm chipsets also will be transitioned over next year.

Hemlock Semiconductor.(USA)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Polysilicon silicon supplier Hemlock Semiconductor will spend $1 billion over the next four years to expand its Hemlock, MI, site, nearly doubling the company's total output to 36,000 metric tons/year.

Capital investments from Japan's top seven chipmakers--Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, NEC Electronics, Sony, Fujitsu, and Matsushita--are expected to reach [yen] 970 billion (US $8.09 billion) in the current fiscal year.(ASIAFOCUS)
July 1, 2007... Capital investments from Japan's top seven chipmakers--Toshiba, Elpida, Renesas, NEC Electronics, Sony, Fujitsu, and Matsushita--are expected to reach [yen] 970 billion (US $8.09 billion) in the current fiscal year, down 8% year-on-year but...

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has secured a $610 million loan guarantee from the US Export-Import bank, to support a Phase 2 capacity increase at its 300mm Fab 7 facility to 39,000 wafers/ month, about 2.4x-2.6x of the site's current...

SMIC.(ASIAFOCUS)
July 1, 2007... China's SMIC has signed six letters of intent to purchase $1.86 billion worth of semiconductor manufacturing equipment over three-year periods from US vendors.

UMC.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... UMC has opened its new 300mm R&D center in Taiwan's Tainan Science Park, adjacent to the foundry's Fab 12A 300mm facility, with independent cleanroom R&D areas for 45nm and below technology development.

Diodes Inc.(ASIAFOCUS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... ASSP chipmaker Diodes Inc. says it will consolidate its analog wafer probe and final test operations from Hsinchu, Taiwan, to facilities in Shanghai, China, by the end of July.

Solvay Solexis.(EUROFOCUS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Solvay Solexis is expanding production capacity by ~30% for polyvinyledene fluoride, a specialty thermoplastic material, in Tavaux, France. The extra capabilities should be onstream by early 2009.

Inside IBM's airgap process.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
July 1, 2007... Airgaps have long been considered as structures to increase the speed of on-chip IC interconnects, though no one had developed manufacturing-worthy process flows. Only in the last year have companies such as Philips (now NXP) shown overviews of...

Virtuous cycle: growing Japanese solar market attracts new suppliers.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)
July 1, 2007... Japan's burgeoning solar market (see figure, p. 28) is attracting new players with new technologies, and that's helping to bring down costs to spur further growth. The two big new players about to muscle in to the solar cell business are...

A single-nanowire positioning system for testing properties.(TECHNOLOGY NEWS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) say they have created a method for manipulating and positioning individual nanowires on semiconductor wafers, enabling fabrication of test structures using only optical...

High interest in low-end printable electronics.(EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Discussions of Moore's Law usually focus on the high end: the fastest microprocessors, the highest memory densities. Yet simply doubling device density does little to either improve the performance or reduce the cost of...

Process monitoring methodology using in-line parametric test.(TEST/ASSEMBLY/PACKAGING)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The relentless demand for consumer electronics products with more functions in smaller sizes is driving semiconductor manufacturers to fabricate smaller devices at shrinking process nodes. These smaller geometries...

Hydrogen bromide cylinder gas ppb-level water vapor measurement.(GASES/GAS HANDLING)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW With continuing ITRS-driven requirements for lower impurities in essential raw materials, the precise measurement for water vapor concentration in hydrogen bromide is a speci. cation essential for semiconductor...

Extending process flexibility for single-wafer wet etch.(ETCH)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW A new tool design effectively decouples chemistry from transport phenomena in wet etching, providing greater flexibility in working with novel chemistry sets. The tool can handle nearly any substrate type, from round to...

Cutting LCD costs with alternative inkjet printing.(FPDs)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The continued push to lower consumer prices on products featuring liquid crystal displays (LCDs) has forced manufacturers to go beyond their efforts at cutting costs of the individual LCD components. Inkjet printing...

Precision requirements for advanced HP logic implantation.(COVER ARTICLE: IMPLANT)(high-performance)(Cover story)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The decrease of junction depths required by device scaling implies a shrinking thermal budget that ultimately necessitates a "diffusion-less" anneal. The final dopant distribution is increasingly dominated by the...

A carbon-restoring silylation process for low-k dielectric repair.(MATERIALS)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Process-induced damage to porous OSG based low-k dielectrics has hampered use of these materials in advanced logic devices. Restoration of the dielectric constant and other properties is achieved by replenishing carbon...

Controlling contaminants with enhanced gas leak detection.(EHS/CONTAMINATION CONTROL)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW In semiconductor and optoelectronics manufacturing, many hazardous gases are used. Quickly finding and terminating the source of such airborne molecular contaminants (AMC) are essential for the safety and well-being of...

Tackling power/performance trade-offs with silicon channel engineering.(MATERIALS)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW The silicon industry is facing unprecedented problems in power management, particularly static power, while the demand for increased performance remains unabated. It is likely that techniques at every level, from...

Photoresist production using automated in-line viscosity control.(RESISTS)
July 1, 2007... EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW An automatic viscosity-controlled process enables the correlation and prediction of film thickness using viscosity values taken during photoresist production. As the critical dimensions of semiconductor devices...

Automated macro defect inspection systems.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The AXi E25 B20 all-surface macro defect edge inspection system is designed for automated inspection of wafer front, back, and edge surfaces. The edge and backside inspection modules integrate with the company's front-side macro defect...

Wet processing platform for FEOL cleans.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Esanti flexible, multichamber, single-wafer wet processing platform addresses front-end-of-line (FEOL) cleans for emerging technology nodes. Built on this company's Spin Processor technology, the platform's features include double-sided...

300mm manual bake oven.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... This manual bake oven (MBO) offers precise and repeatable bake performance for process control in semiconductor development. The oven is configured for 300mm silicon wafers, but can be adjusted to accommodate different size wafers and different...

Metrology tool for front-to-backside alignment.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The DSM200 is an automated metrology system for front-to-backside alignment applications. It verifies alignment accuracy on wafers from 2" to 200mm. The system incorporates pattern recognition technology and offers a measurement accuracy of...

RF power-delivery system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... This Paramount half-rack, 3kW RF generator delivers precise process power at 13.56MHz fixed or variable frequencies. It is able to handle abrupt plasma-impedance changes in real time. The Paramount system reportedly enables faster transitions,...

PECVD system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Producer Celera PECVD system advances strain engineering technology and reportedly achieves the stress levels required for manufacturing faster transistors in 45nm and beyond devices. By integrating this company's Nanocure UV cure...

Automated material handling system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The FabEX Transporter automated material handling system (AMHS) moves 300mm wafer FOUPs at high speeds (>3m/sec) to minimize FOUP delivery time. It is said to have fewer moving parts than other systems for improved reliability, and improves the...

Electron beam-based mask repair system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The MeRiT MG 45 e-beam mask repair system is said to match the advanced requirements for the 45nm design node. The tool covers opaque and clear defect repair on both phase-shifting masks (PSM) and binary masks in one platform. It enables the...

Memory repair, link processing system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The model 9830HD is the newest member of its family of link processing and yield improvement systems. It utilizes a new 100kHz, 1.0[micro]m wavelength laser, resulting in increased throughput of up to 50% when compared to previous generations...

System for defect characterization.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Expida 1255S system for applications including defect characterization, failure analysis, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) sample preparation, extends the capabilities of the Expida family through improvements to the Sirion...

Hybrid confocal-atomic force microscope.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... This new tool geared for 3D metrology applications is a combined advanced confocal/atomic force microscope (ACM/AFM) that will provide users with the speed and 3D imaging advantages of ACM, combined with atomic-level resolution measurement...

Sion plasma arc detector.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Sion plasma arc detector provides real-time, high-power analyses of plasma micro-arcing, which can cause damage to the target, the film being deposited, and the wafer surface in chemical vapor deposition and etch processes. Sion employs the...

Lean-etch wafer processing system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... This Lean Etch wafer processing system is built with lean principles and parallel architecture that uses dual independent linear robots to replace the large central handler commonly found on cluster tools. The linear platform eliminates...

Materials processing system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The new IX-70 ChromAblate on-target inspection and short deletion system is a laser-based materials processing system with a compact benchtop configuration and a high degree of flexibility. It was designed for the repair of flat panel displays,...

Bridge offset tool.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... This bridge offset tool (BOT) is a loadlock and transfer system for bridging process modules. This tool can receive a 200mm wafer at one transfer plane and raise or lower it to transfer it into a 300mm process module at a different plane. The...

Parametric test platform.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The 4080 series parametric test platform is designed to meet the evaluation needs of engineers working in semiconductor fabs and research environments. It covers the full range of measurement requirements, from mainstream processes to advanced...

Power device characterization.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Tesla power device characterization system solves the on-wafer probing challenges for engineers and test technicians who need to characterize power devices. It provides low contact resistance measurements of power semiconductors up to 60A...

Wafer defect inspection system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
July 1, 2007... The Argus 3200 high-resolution wafer defect inspection system combines an enhanced version of this company's Step&Image technology with its new IPX image processing platform. The system extends production flexibility and sensitivity into...

It's harder to refute the benefits of DFM.(INDUSTRY FORUM)(design for manufacturability)
July 1, 2007... As the semiconductor world moves toward 45nm geometries--with 32nm and 22nm processes on the horizon--relying on designers to follow recommended design rules in addition to the standard minimum rules is increasingly less effective for improving...