Honeywell announced today that it has introduced new copper manganese (CuMn) sputtering targets for semiconductor manufacturing based on patented technology offering customers higher strength, longer life, and better performance.
The new targets are based on Honeywell’s Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) technology, an advanced manufacturing process Honeywell originally developed for Aluminum (Al) and Al alloys.
“Honeywell Electronic Materials has amassed nearly a half century of metallurgical experience and expertise,” said Chris LaPietra, product line director for Honeywell’s targets business. “We apply that knowledge to develop technologies that benefit our customers and these new ECAE CuMn targets are evidence of that.”
Targets processed with ECAE technology have superfine grain size, which results in extremely homogeneous microstructure, high mechanical strength, and particle reduction. While grain size for standard targets can range from approximately 50 to 80 microns, the new ECAE CuMn targets exhibit sub-micron grain size. Fine grain structure produced by ECAE technology eliminates a plasma drop out issue that effected semiconductor manufacturers when using standard bonded targets. This issue caused arcing and particles, and necessitated scrapped wafers and target change-outs, which all contribute to unwanted higher costs.
Increased strength allows for the entire target to be made from the same metal (monolithic). This essentially doubles overall life expectancies for the targets from the standard 1,800 kWh (kilowatt hours) to 3,600 kWh. Extended product lifetimes means producers can purchase fewer targets, spend less time and resources changing out the target and cleaning the chamber, and have more uptime for their production processes. All of this helps decrease total cost of ownership (CoO) for semiconductor manufacturers.
Honeywell Electronic Materials, part of Honeywell Performance Materials & Technologies, supplies microelectronic polymers, electronic chemicals, and other advanced materials along with an extensive set of product offerings under its metals business segment, including physical vapor deposition (PVD) targets and coil sets, precious metal thermocouples, and low alpha emissivity plating anodes and advanced heat spreader materials used during back-end packaging processes for thermal management and electrical interconnect.