Solid State Technology articles from May 2006

Solid State Technology archives from May 2006

Tackling future CMOS challenges outside Moore's Law.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Bob Haavind, Editorial Direcotr Is Moore's Law dead, and, if so, does it really matter? That question, posed to a SEMI breakfast panel held near Boston recently, brought some surprising answers. Although the panelists agreed that the...

What do you do with a billion transistors on a chip?(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... Some time ago, a group of chip industry veterans pointed to a quandary facing the industry as we moved toward a billion transistors on a chip and beyond. They did not question the continuing march along the Moore's Law semi-log track for the...

Analysts: chipmaker spending to increase 10% this year.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Several industry analysts who had projected little or no increase in semiconductor industry capital spending in 2006 have changed their tune, thanks to continued strong chip demand early in the year, high utilization rates, and several...

NEC Electronics America Inc.(to develop 200mm wafers)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... NEC Electronics America Inc. is expanding capabilities at its fab in Roseville, CA, to include 0.15pm process technologies on 200mm wafers, in answer to demand for devices used in automotive and consumer applications. Production of 150mm wafers...

ZiLog Inc., San Jose, CA, has sold a 200mm fad and 19 acres of land in Nampa, ID, former assets of its Mod III subsidiary, to Micron Technology Inc. for $5 million.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... ZiLog Inc., San Jose, CA, has sold a 200mm fad and 19 acres of land in Nampa, ID, former assets of its Mod III subsidiary, to Micron Technology Inc. for $5 million. Micron aims to invest in facility improvements, as well as increase staff, in...

Inspection equipment providers Rudolph Technologies Inc., Flanders, NJ, and August Technology Corp. officially completed their merger on Feb. 15.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Inspection equipment providers Rudolph Technologies Inc., Flanders, NJ, and August Technology Corp. officially completed their merger on Feb. 15. The new corporate entity will keep Rudolph's name, with a combined workforce of over 550 employees...

Marvell Technology Group Ltd., Santa Clara, CA, has agreed to acquire the printer semiconductor business of Avago Technologies.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Marvell Technology Group Ltd., Santa Clara, CA, has agreed to acquire the printer semiconductor business of Avago Technologies, the former chip business of Agilent Technologies, for $240 million in cash, plus $35 million in incentives.

Tokai Rika Co.(plans to build new lab)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Tokai Rika Co. plans to build a new lab to eventually quadruple its output of semiconductors for the automotive market, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The 5 billion yen (about US $42.8 million) f'cility, built at the company's complex...

Amkor Technology Inc.(to add wafer-bumping operations )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Amkor Technology Inc., Chandler, AZ, is adding wafer-bumping operations to its existing test operations in Singapore, using "copy-exact" processes currently used in bumping operations by its Unitive subsidiary in Taiwan. The site will begin...

ASAT Holdings Ltd.(to transfer its manufacturing operations)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... ASAT Holdings Ltd., a Hong Kong-based provider of semiconductor package design, assembly, and test services, was expected to transfer substantially all of its manufacturing operations to its new 560,000 sq. ft facility in Dongguan, China, by...

Advanced Process Semiconductor Foundry Planning Co., the planning company set up by Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp., and Renesas Technology Corp.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Advanced Process Semiconductor Foundry Planning Co., the planning company set up by Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp., and Renesas Technology Corp. to evaluate the feasibility of a joint fab operation, expects to start production by the end of 2007,...

ASML Holding NV.(on continuous 24/7 production )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... ASML Holding NV, Veldhoven, The Netherlands, is switching to a continuous 24/7 production schedule to expand manufacturing capabilities and provide more flexibility for working through market cycles.

Semefab.(new development center )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Semefab is establishing a new design and development center for nanotechnology in its Glenrothes, Fife, operation, under a GBP 15 million (US $26.2 million) project jointly funded by the Scottish Enterprise and the UK's Department of Trade and...

Europe's Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) has chosen Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials' 193nm photoresist.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Europe's Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) has chosen Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials' 193nm photoresist, optimized for immersion contact hole imaging, as a Process of Record and a baseline material for its 65nm immersion...

TI and MIT collaborate on subthreshold SRAM in 65nm CMOS.
May 1, 2006... At the recent IEEE International Solid-State Circuit Conference, MIT Prof. Anantha Chandrakasan presented a paper describing the performance of an ultralow power (ULP) (0.4V subthreshold), 256kbit SRAM that was manufactured using Texas...

Immersion in 2006: the industry is halfway in.
May 1, 2006... The 2006 SPIE Symposium on Microlithography offered an opportunity to evaluate the progress and prospects of liquid immersion exposure at a crucial point, after the R&D stage but before the industry really plunges in. While much of the promise...

FSI's ViPR reaches back to the future of resist strip.(FSI International Inc.)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... FSI International Inc., Chaska, MN, has extended the classic "Piranha" etch/strip wet bath process by creating a point-of-use chemical blending subsystem to equip the company's Zeta batch spray and spin platform for resist strip. With the goal...

Tech brief.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Researchers develop foundation for circuitry and devices based on graphite. Graphite, the material that gives pencils their marking ability, could be the basis for a new class of nanometer-scale electronic devices that have the properties...

Surface-finishing techniques for stainless steel passivation.
May 1, 2006... There is considerable value in identifying optimum surface-finishing techniques for 316L stainless steel used in ultrahigh purity gas applications in the semiconductor industry. Purity and corrosion resistance are extremely important, with new...

Immersion's evolution launches the age of hyper-NA lithography.
May 1, 2006... Immersion arrived on the lithography roadmap shortly after the first immersion images became available in the fall of 2003 [1]. In addition to enabling a >50% increase in depth of focus (DOF) over dry lithography, immersion also offers...

The thin-film landscape for ALD processing.(Cover story)
May 1, 2006... OVERVIEW Different manufacturing requirements for major IC device types call for different thin-film material requirements. Current materials limitations call for higher performing materials solutions. Some incumbent deposition technologies may...

The challenges of commercializing flexible displays.
May 1, 2006... OVERVIEW One of the most exciting areas in the flat panel display industry is the emergence of flexible displays. In recent years, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have come to absolutely dominate the displays industry, but LCDs are glass-based...

Annealing techniques for optimizing 45nm-node USJs.
May 1, 2006... For the 45nm node, the p+ USI for extension varies from 15nm-20nm deep, depending on the device application and trade-offs between dopant activation, junction depth ([X.sub.j]), and junction quality for high performance (HP), low operating...

The ConFab Preview: May 21-24, 2006: The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, Nevada.
May 1, 2006... * Beyond the technology roadmap: Managing the new economics of chipmaking The economic landscape for semiconductor manufacturers has changed dramatically in recent years. The ConFab conference, to be held May 21-24 in Las Vegas, will focus...

ViPR evolves Piranha to reduce FEOL ashing steps.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The ViPR point-of-use chemical blending subsystem is equipped with FSI's Zeta batch spray and spin platform for resist strip. Mixing sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide results in an exothermic reaction and a corresponding increase in...

Upgraded tool for 300mm brightfield monitoring.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... This fifth-generation broadband UV/visible brightfield inspection system captures yield-impacting defects on critical layers. The 2367, an extension of the 23xx series and intended complement to the 2800 series full-spectrum DUV/UV/visible...

Compact wet bench uses new drying technology.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The MultiStep automated wet bench covers all wet applications including wet etching, layer thinning, surface cleaning, and layer stripping, for IC, MEMS, GaAs, and substrate manufacturing for wafer sizes from 50-300mm. At the heart of the tool...

Controlling thin-film deposition rate and thickness.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The XTC/3 is a thin-film deposition controller for highly accurate monitoring of deposition rate and thickness. A patented oscillator technology, ModeLock, prevents film thickness errors caused by mode-hopping. Two models are available: a...

Frontend metrology tool for 45nm manufacturing.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The Z3D 7000 optical metrology tool is a fully automated standalone system built for semiconductor high-volume manufacturing process control at multiple process steps, including lithography, etch, film deposition, and planarization. The tool...

Remote plasma source platform.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The Litmas RPS is a fully integrated, remote inductive plasma source and power delivery system for delivery of reactive gas species for process applications such as wafer pre-clean, photoresist strip, and atomic-layer deposition (ALD), as well...

Organizing fab metrology data.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... FabVision is a fab-wide data analysis system, incorporating a server, workstation, and software package to enable wafer manufacturers to easily store, retrieve, and analyze critical metrology and inspection data from production tools...

Design-stage yield analysis tool.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... Yield Analyzer 2.0 provides automated yield analysis, enabling optimization of a design prior to tape-out by revealing yield-sensitive areas of the design. Different design styles at different stages are supported, including cell-based and...

Low-cost single-beam FIB.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The JEOL JEM-9320 single-column focused ion beam (FIB) system prepares thin films and cross sections for nanometric failure and defect analysis using S/TEM, TEM, or surface observation. It features a 30nA/30kV ion beam current for precise...

Resist strip for aluminum processes.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The BAKER ALEG-380 photoresist stripper and residue remover is offered as an alternative to hydroxylamine-based chemistries in aluminum IC manufacturing processes. The remover cleans bulk photoresists, heavily cross-linked ash/etch residues...

150mm device measurement platform.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The M150 system is a configurable 150mm device measurement platform for measuring semiconductor wafers, ICs, printed circuit boards, MEMS, and even bioscience devices during R&D and engineering verification. The basic system includes a prober...

Adhesives for die-attach apps.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The AAA2300 series of electrically insulating die attached adhesives features a low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) that reduces CTE strain. The higher-CTE adhesive is suitable for pyramidal-die-stack on bleed-prone nitride passivated...

Metal matrix composite material.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The AISiC metal matrix composite enables a tailored coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) to eliminate the need for thermal interface stacking, increasing reliability in the field. The isotropic CTE value can be adjusted by modifying the...

Low-flow pulseless fluid delivery system.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... This fluid delivery system combines a no-valve fluid control principle with phase-canceling technology for continuous pulse-free fluid metering down to flows of 5 [micro]l/min, and 1% or better accuracy for millions of cycles. Three separate...

Furnaceware to replace quartz, SiC consumables.(PRODUCT NEWS)
May 1, 2006... The SiFusion suite of polysilicon furnaceware includes boats, towers, injectors, and pedestals for ASM, Aviza, Hitachi-Kokusai, and TEL vertical furnaces. The products are replacements for quartz and silicon carbide consumables in 200mm-300mm...

Future challenges in computational lithography.
May 1, 2006... Today, the errors associated with modeling the lithography process constitute one of the largest error sources in IC manufacturing, according to the modeling and simulation section of the 2005 International Technology Roadmap for...