Today, nanoelectronics research center imec announced that SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of advanced systems for the semiconductor industry, has joined imec’s suppliers hub for joint R&D in cleaning, wet etch and advanced lithography coat/develop processing.
In today’s consolidating semiconductor landscape, equipment and material suppliers are playing a key role in collectively tackling the scaling challenges posed by today’s fast-evolving, equipment-intensive industry. Strong R&D interactions between manufacturers and suppliers at an early stage of development help to accelerate technology advancements, allowing for efficient cost sharing, minimalized risk, and optimized the return on investment for semiconductor manufacturers and equipment suppliers.
“Imec’s supplier hub aims to offer a neutral, open innovation R&D platform that involves suppliers more deeply and at an early stage of process step and module development,” said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO at imec. “SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions’ advanced lithography track, cleaning and etching tools are paramount to imec’s research platform on advanced semiconductor process technologies, and we are extremely pleased to strengthen our ecosystem with this global player, following other major companies who have also recently joined imec’s supplier hub.”
“Our extended imec collaboration enables SCREEN to perform joint state-of-the-art R&D and continue to provide innovative solutions for advance semiconductor manufacturing,” said Tadahiro Suhara, President of SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions. “The supplier hub environment facilitates our early development in front and back end-of-line cleaning as well as lithography patterning technologies for the 7nm node and beyond.”
Suppliers joining imec’s supplier hub have the ability to assess their tools on product stacks, develop process control, hardware/software options and integrate new materials. As part of the joint R&D agreement, SCREEN will advance process development on their AquaSpin SU-3200 single wafer cleaners for FEOL and BEOL applications as well as SOKUDO DUO coat/develop track processes for lithography patterning.