April 24, 2001 – Midland, MI and Seoul, Korea – Dow Corning Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have signed an agreement to develop and refine interlayer dielectric applications using Dow Corning XKL Spin-on Dielectric.

The agreement is designed to combine the two companies’ strengths behind an effort to have XLK meet cutting-edge k=2.0 specifications with problem-free integration, according to Dow and Samsung.

Samsung has been using Dow Corning’s FOx(r) Flowable Oxide, a low-k spin-on

dielectric, in full production for several years. The integration of XLK, which is a porous version of the same HSQ molecule found in FOx, will help Samsung reach the industry’s target for 70 nm node, according to the firms.

Before introducing XLK last summer, Dow Corning worked with several key customers for more than two years on initial development, and since then has been working on refinements of unit processes and applications for specific customer needs. Samsung evaluated various materials in search of a partner and product to help the company achieve low dielectric constant which only can be achieved by introducing porosity into the material.