Carl Zeiss SMT to Acquire Israeli Start-Up Pixer Technology
Staff — Semiconductor International, 8/7/2008

Carl Zeiss SMT (Jena, Germany) announced that it is acquiring Pixer Technology Ltd. (Karmiel, Israel), a company that offers photomask yield enhancement systems. Pixer's tool incorporates femtolasers to insert pixels into the reticle substrate, controlling attenuation to optimize CDs on the mask. The binding agreement will add Pixer to Carl Zeiss SMT's Semiconductor Metrology Systems (SMS) division complementing the Zeiss product portfolio of mask qualification, repair and metrology systems. More

VLSI Standards Opens Solar Cell Calibration Lab
Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor — Electronic News, 8/5/2008

VLSI Standards Inc., (San Jose. California) announced completion of its solar calibration laboratory, which is accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for the measurements of Current, Voltage, Power, and Efficiency of Photovoltaic Devices. The company has also released the Solar Reference Cell, which will be used by solar manufacturers to monitor and calibrate solar simulators, which are critical in determining the efficiency of production solar cells and panels. More

KLA-Tencor to acquire Vistec's Microelectronic Inspection Unit
Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor — Electronic News, 7/31/2008

Moving into the semiconductor manufacturing equipment sectors of mask and wafer inspection, San Jose-based KLA-Tencor announced that it intends to acquire the microelectronic inspection equipment (MIE) business unit of Vistec Semiconductor Systems, which is wholly owned by Golden Gate Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Vistec's MIE business unit is headquartered in Weilburg, Germany, and is a provider of advanced semiconductor mask and wafer manufacturing systems. More

Atom Trap Grabs Magnetic Atoms
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 7/30/2008

A new trapping technique developed at NIST raises the possibility of using erbium and similar complex lanthanide elements for unique nanoscale magnetic field detectors, atomic resolution metrology, and optical and quantum computing systems. Erbium, which has unusual optical, electronic and magnetic properties, had been considered until now too difficult to trap because of its complex energy and magnetic structure. More

UMC Joins Sematech Research Consortium
David Lammers, News Editor — Semiconductor International, 7/28/2008

United Microelectronics Corp. (Hsinchu, Taiwan), a foundry that has maintained a fiercely independent process development philosophy, is joining Sematech (Austin, Texas) as a full member with a focus on R&D for exploratory technologies on 300 mm wafers, including 22 nm and beyond process generations. UMC supports the 300Prime evolutionary effort rather than a quick transition to the 450 mm wafer diameter. Sematech's full R&D program encompasses lithography, front-end processing, 3-D interconnects and metrology. More

Improving the Way We Change Materials
Laura Peters, Editor-in-Chief — Semiconductor International, 7/17/2008

Patterning and new materials are probably the greatest grand challenges in semiconductor processing for the next 3-5 years, according to a SEMICON West panel, because at 32 nm and beyond because it will be necessary to build multi-level structures with decreasing dimensions but increasing topography. According to one of the panelists, metrology will be a concern, because at any point in production, a fab wants to have the right metrology inline and no more metrology steps or tools than are necessary. More

Test Socket Industry Faces Issues Scaling Below 0.4 mm Pitch
Sally Cole Johnson, Contributing Editor — Semiconductor International, 8/4/2008

The test socket industry is encountering both electrical and mechanical issues as package pitch sizes shrink below 0.4 mm. The major challenges include increased package size, which means more I/O to test. Add RF testing requirements, and signal integrity issues enter the mix. It appears that new materials, designs and contacting technologies are necessary for test sockets to continue scaling to tighter pitches. More

Design Information Improves SEM Defect Review Sampling Efficiency
S. Jansen et al., IBM, G. Florence et al., KLA-Tencor Corp. — Semiconductor International, 8/1/2008

Because defect inspection of leading-edge processes often results in very high defect counts, and random SEM samples may not be representative of the true defect population, more effective SEM review sampling strategies are needed. Design-based grouping has been shown to be an effective method for detecting systematic defects and accurately reporting their count. Furthermore, non-critical regions, such as dummy fill, can be removed from the SEM sample, improving the utilization of SEM resources. More

The Measure of All Things: Considering Beyond-CMOS Metrology
Alexander E. Braun — Semiconductor International, 8/11/2008

Metrology is crucial to the semiconductor industry's progress. If something cannot be measured and quantified, it becomes very difficult to direct or control it. The ITRS has done much to define what the needs will be for each node, alerting academia, industry, and others in the metrology community about what the requirements will be. But now metrology must prepare for the beyond-CMOS world, which will include new materials being used now and others as yet unthought of, as well as structures and devices that will require manufacturing processes as beyond ours as ours are to cutting rubylith. Blog

Scanning Probe Microscope Works Out Solar Cell Profiles
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 7/31/2008

Scanning probe microscope techniques can be used to study nanostructured organic photovoltaic cells, giving insights into film behavior and processing needs. Knowing about the chemistry of different film materials being considered for solar cells is not enough. Data about their nanostructures is vital to obtain the maximum efficiency when they are brought together in the finished cell. Techniques such as scanning probe microscopy and its variants are assisting in providing the necessary data. More

Helium Leak Detector

UV Microscope Objective

A line of UV lenses has been expanded to include a high-numerical-aperture (NA) UV microscope; NA is 0.90. It provides users with 0.28 µm spot imaging at a wavelength of 248 nm or 0.41 µm spot imaging at a 365 nm wavelength. The effective focal length is 5.5 mm, while field of view is 100 μm. The microscope is diffraction-limited with <0.07 waves RMS wavefront distortion over the entire field of view.
Special Optics Inc., Wharton, N.J.
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Acoustic Microscope Imaging

September 4-5, 2008: FIB Technology Short Course

September 7-10, 2008: KGD Packaging & Test Workshop

September 9-11, 2008: SEMICON Taiwan