Hillsboro, OR – FEI Co. has joined equipment suppliers Novellus Systems, Lam Research Corp., and SpeedFam-IPEC in the Damascus Alliance industry consortium, founded in 1998 to tackle the technology transition to copper dual damascene manufacturing.

With the installation of a DualBeam metrology system at the Customer Integration Center, FEI will bring sub-surface defect sourcing and 3-D metrology to alliance customers.

The Customer Integration Center is located at Novellus’ Silicon Valley campus.

Operating as a formal, cross-company collaborative effort, the Damascus Alliance is designed to help customers solve their unit process integration problems, give them access to advanced copper technologies and state-of-the-art toolsets, and help them fine-tune their dual damascene processes to deliver a reliable, cost-effective interconnect structure.

“The role of the equipment suppliers in the semiconductor industry is changing,” said Wilbert van den Hoek, CTO and executive VP for integration and advanced development at Novellus. “We still need to supply state-of-the-art equipment and unit processes, but with the changes to new materials and manufacturing methods, there’s also a role for equipment companies to assist customers with optimizing their process flows, and helping to accelerate their production yield learning.”

In addition to the DualBeam metrology system, FEI will supply full-time, on-site applications specialists, experienced in advanced sub-surface critical dimension and defect sourcing applications, to the Alliance’s Customer Integration Center.