July 15, 2011 — Research group CEA-Leti and Replisaurus Technologies Inc., a developer of a metallization technology for integrated passives, copper pillars and TSV, will begin applying Replisaurus’ ElectroChemical Pattern Replication (ECPR) metallization process to customer target products.

Less than two years ago, the partners launched a common lab to optimize ECPR (Replisaurus’ ECPR Applications Laboratory and Customer Demo Center has been based at Leti’s Grenoble facility since Fall 2010). The metallization technology is now ready on a master, a 200 or 300mm silicon wafer filled with copper and sized for final structures to be patterned. Through work at the common lab, each stand-alone module used for ECPR was improved.

The partners plan to commercialize ECPR as a cost-effective alternative to dual damascene copper deposition. ECPR eliminates chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), photolithography, and related solvents and materials in copper structure fab.  Read an in-depth article on the ECPR metallization process here.

The Leti, Replisaurus lab team demonstrated high-resolution etch of near-vertical copper pattern sidewalls on the target wafer. The process has been optimized for zero sidewall defects across the wafer, even at the extreme edges, and high aspect ratio, 2:1 or greater where line spacing is =3