Versatile process development equipment for developing semiconductor materials
Instruments for R&D are our traditional expertise and – above all – our semiconductor instruments bring researchers accurate and repeatable information. They are also as versatile as you will meet. They can study a huge variety of materials and processes, and have a wide range of optional software modules (including SuperQ, FP-Multi and SPC) for configuration and calibration, application standards, measurement pattern definition, fundamental parameter analysis and statistical process control.
More, though, we have adopted an integrated approach to IC development. When you transfer a material from process development to pilot production and again to volume production, we ensure that the tools are matched and that the software is identical to allow recipe transfer.
This approach is particularly needed for the many "new" materials (copper, low- and high- k dielectrics, compound semiconductors, and the rest) that are now entering semiconductor production lines. Unfamiliar materials are meeting unfamiliar processes, and operators are having to deal with new equipment hardware and software. In the meanwhile, products are having to get to market faster and faster.
It is the approach we have adopted for our XRF Wafer Analyzers. Besides of course allowing manual or robotic loading/unloading, our PW2830 can have automated batch loading from SMIF or FOUP with single or dual load port, right up to fully automated process lines running GEM300. Our PW2830 wafer analyzer for process development is upwards compatible with production lines. Here, repeatability figures and tool-to-tool matching are a best-in-class just 0.02% RMS for a typical Cu seed layer.
Workhorse technologies
R&D has perhaps the widest choice of metrology techniques, and no single technique satisfies all requirements. Techniques like SEM and TEM (Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy), FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra Red) and XRR (X-ray Reflectometry) give valuable information to researchers.
They are not, however, 'workhorse' technologies – none of them have the throughputs needed for production, for example. So, even if a customer accepts R&D's samples, the device manufacturer must introduce a new metrology system before it can produce them in any volume. This on its own introduces a delay before pilot production can supply enough devices for the customer's 'initial run'.
This is due to the fact that most instrument manufacturers see process development as an 'island' of knowledge. This is an expensive mistake – process development is one of the three stages of semiconductor production, and is followed by pilot production, and then full-scale production.
Without an integrated approach for their metrology equipment, device manufacturers are also condemned to repeat set-up charges at each production stage (new hardware, new software, new user interfaces), even then losing most of their valuable process and materials information.
R&D techniques fast and reliable enough for pilot production
We have concentrated on XRD (X-ray diffraction) and XRF (X-ray fluorescence), and integrated our equipment so that it does not suffer from these problems.
X-ray fluorescence particularly gives extensive and in-depth data on composition, film thickness, and dopant and contamination levels of semiconductors and other materials. The tools are versatile, with easy application set-up and recipe management. With the addition of automated handling and a couple of extra software modules, our instruments can handle volume production control of any devices developed by R&D.
Using R&D techniques for production in this way brings an unexpected side benefit: it helps integrate the production process. R&D develops new materials, pilot production integrates them, and full-scale production uses them in earnest. Materials are hence the common thread, and metrology progresses from (general-purpose) R&D right through to (dedicated) volume metrology equipment. At each stage, device manufacturers need to identify the critical chemical and physical properties of materials, then process them properly, and finally ensure they have been properly processed. XRF does this for materials from Be to U.
company