Splinter Sees Weak Order Period Looming for Equipment Vendors
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/13/2008

Applied Materials Inc. CEO Michael Splinter said flash memory makers have pushed out silicon equipment orders in the second half of this year, and forecasts a 40% reduction in its equipment sales for the third fiscal quarter ending in July compared with its second fiscal quarter. The company reported healthy financial results for the second fiscal quarter, because of cost reductions as silicon equipment sales remained flat. Applied earned a net profit of $303M on net sales of $2.15B, with revenues bolstered by strong display business sales. Splinter expects third quarter silicon orders to be "down significantly," marking a bottom to the current cycle before an expected fourth fiscal quarter rebound. More

Weak Memory Market Impacts Test Probe Card Market
Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor — Electronic News, 5/19/2008

VLSI Research warned that 2008 will be a particularly difficult year for companies serving the memory IC market, with sales of probe cards forecast to reach $1.41B this year, up 3.4% from $1.36B in 2007. Weakness in the semiconductor industry pushed sales of IC wafer testing probe cards down to half of the five-year historic average, or 13.9%, in 2007. More

How to Detect Non-Overlay Misalignment Errors?
Laura Peters, Editor-in-Chief — Semiconductor International, 5/8/2008

Engineers at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) were confronted with a problem in their DRAM fab — how to detect a misalignment error that was not caused by an overlay problem. A 5-15 nm misalignment between the active area occurred with the underlying deep trench causing an average of 5% failure. If caused by overlay errors, it could have been detected with overlay metrology tools, but this error would typically not be caught until wafer probe. SMIC worked with Applied Materials to detect this defect using a darkfield inspection tool, which was verified by SEM defect review and FIB cross-section. More

FormFactor Facing DRAM Investment Freeze
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/1/2008

In a trend that impacts the wider semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure, executives at FormFactor Inc. said the probe card market is facing an investment freeze in the DRAM sector, with many of its DRAM customers sticking with older linewidths in an effort to preserve cash. Rather than move to 65-68 nm technology, many DRAM vendors are delaying this ramp up, using engineering resources to optimize an older node. They bring to 65 only those products that are absolutely necessary. More

D2I Project Reduces Mask Inspection Time
Kenji Tsuda, Asia Contributing Editor — Semiconductor International, 4/21/2008

Japan's mask inspection research project, Mask D2I (design, drawing and inspection), has reduced inspection times by as much as 40% by discriminating between defects on critical and non-critical patterns. This shortens repetitive pattern review and simplifies defect decisions based on a prioritization technique. When a defect in a repetitive pattern is found, similar patterns are observed to look for the same defect. To search for similar defects, a design pattern may be overlaid on the observed pattern. This may lead to the exact alignment of the similar patterns. By searching locations near the defective pattern, similar defects can easily be found. More

System Gives Accurate Flicker-Noise Measurement
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/19/2008

Cascade Microtech announced its EDGE Flicker Noise Measurement System, which provides accurate measurements from 1 Hz to 30 MHz. The tool is referred to as the only fully integrated measurement system, combining the wafer probe station, instruments, software and accessories. Anyone needing to measure flicker noise for device modeling or process development and evaluation now has simple access to flicker-noise data over what is described as the widest frequency range with the lowest background noise. Blog

Inline Optical Spectroscopy for Advanced Gate Stacks
Ibrahim Burki, Cristian Rivas, Jeff Hurst, Matt Weldon and Henry Yeung, Metrosol Inc., Austin, Texas; Jimmy Price, Patrick Lysaght, P.Y. Hung, Raj Jammy, Sematech, Austin, Texas — Semiconductor International, 5/1/2008

The use of hafnium-based high-k gate insulator films to control leakage currents and enable continued scaling of the equivalent oxide thickness of complex advanced gate stack systems requires accurate process monitoring and control. Slight variations in thickness and composition of the thin hafnium-based film and the SiO2-like interfacial layer between the high-k gate dielectric and silicon substrate may significantly affect transistor electrical performance. Fast and reliable inline monitoring of the physical characteristics of complex gate stack film systems is needed. Metrology platform complexity and fundamental optical constraints limited measurement until the appearance of vacuum UV spectroscopic reflectometry. More

New Probe Preps AFM for Inline Metrology
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/13/2008

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) have developed atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes that can quickly and simultaneously measure material properties such as adhesion, stiffness, elasticity and viscosity, in addition to the traditional topography scan. This development promises to move AFM from an offline to an inline metrology and inspection modality. More

IP Theft: Innovation at Risk
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 4/23/2008

Vicki Hadfield, president of SEMI North America, announced what is probably SEMI's most important report of the decade: "Intellectual Property Challenges and Concerns of the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Industry." Recognizing that IP theft is one of the most crucial problems of our industry, SEMI commissioned the study last year from the Noblemen Group to better understand the problem. The results are disquieting. Blog

A Modest Proposal
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/13/2008

For decades there has been concern over the fact that we are losing our technical infrastructure because companies are migrating to other countries, mostly due to those nations' lower labor costs and their governments' economic breaks, offered to anyone willing to move the means of production there. We have complained very strongly, but little has been done. A modest proposal could solve most of our major problems, starting with global warming and the fuel problem, without a single extra tax or new laws and regulations, and without the creation of additional government bureaucracies. Blog

Revisiting a Conference, Some Ongoing Problems
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 5/9/2008

During a conversation on some of the lithography and metrology technology problems that the industry faces, Alain Diebold, empire professor of nanoscale science at the University of Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, had some thoughts on the 2007 ITRS metrology and lithography roadmaps. According to him, the roadmaps discussed process and measurement challenges associated with new lithography processes, such as dual patterning, and a review of a set of similar processes, such as dual patterning, spacer patterning and double exposure, shows that they are at different stages of development for future technology nodes. Many 2008 SPIE Advanced Lithography conference papers covered some recent advances in these processes. Blog

Acoustic Profiling Module

Automation Platform

Atlas is a standard automation platform that uses a well-estalished 200 and 300 mm-capable equipment front-end module (EFEM) to reliably align and transfer wafers from the loadports to the inspection station. Overall airflow and pressure balance between the process stage and EFEM has been optimized through computational flow dynamics modeling to ensure clean wafer transfer.
Owens Design Inc., Fremont, Calif.
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Reticle Haze Detection

June 1-4, 2008: IEEE International Interconnect Technology Conference

June 2-4, 2008: SEMICON Russia

June 23-27, 2008: Nanomechanics for NEMS