Nov. 26, 2001 – Santa Clara, CA – Applied Materials has acquired the assets of Schlumberger’s electron-beam wafer inspection business for an undisclosed cash amount.

Included in the acquisition is Schlumberger’s Odyssey 300 system, which uses proprietary e-beam technology to identify yield-killing defects in advanced semiconductor devices.

Using proprietary e-beam voltage contrast technology, the Odyssey 300 system detects both surface and sub-surface defects (electrical, particle and pattern) such as voids in copper interconnect structures, Applied said.

“The Odyssey system is already being used by several semiconductor manufacturers and will be fully supported by our Process Diagnostics and Control division,” added Gilad Almogy, VP and GM of Applied’s PDC division. “We plan to continue development of this technology, along with our existing systems, to meet the challenges of future chip generations.”