October 11, 2001 – Bilthoven, Netherlands – ASM International N.V. announced that its subsidiary, ASM Europe B.V., has developed a low-cost low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) process for poly-crystalline silicon germanium (SiGe) films on 300mm wafers.

The films are deposited in ASM’s A400 and A412 vertical furnaces. ASM has already established a position in poly-SiGe applications with its single wafer epitaxial reactor, the Epsilon reactor, according to the company. With the introduction of poly-SiGe in a vertical furnace, ASM can now offer this process for applications in a batch reactor.

Application of SiGe films is projected in advanced CMOS gate stack structures for devices with geometries of 130nm and below. According to the ITRS road map, the introduction of poly-SiGe gate electrodes will likely occur in the 2002 to 2003 timeframe. With product load sizes of 100 to 150 wafers, a typical poly-SiGe gate stack process in the Advance 400 Series vertical batch furnaces leads to productivity numbers as high as 40 wafers/hour, per reactor, for 100 wafer load sizes, the company said.

“These gate materials can be combined with ultra-thin gate oxides in our dual-reactor A400 and A412 vertical furnaces, thus providing another key CMOS transistor process. By combining two critical gate stack processes in one system, the A400 and A412 furnaces provide a significant cost of ownership reduction for our customers,” said Albert Hasper, ASM’s global product manager for vertical furnaces.