Category Archives: Materials and Equipment

January 16, 2008 – nCoat Inc. has established a partnership with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, N.C., for characterization and development of nanotechnology based materials and industrial coatings.

nCoat will collaborate with NC A&T’s Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures (CAMSS) in the areas of advanced composites, carbon nanotubes, nano-enhanced slurry coatings and metallic degradation from extreme thermal and chemical environments.

CAMSS has an extensive track record in nanoscience based advanced materials as applied to thin film research, nanocomposites, tribological and environmental coatings.

Jan. 15, 2008 – Applied Materials says it is reducing its global workforce by about 7% (1000 workers) through a combination of job elimination and attrition, primarily affecting its semiconductor equipment and services/support businesses. The moves, initially resulting in a $20M charge (mostly taken in fiscal 1Q08), are expected to save about $150M annually going forward, after being completed in the fourth quarter of FY08.

The company didn’t give much in the way of explanation, saying in a statement that it had already reorganized its semiconductor equipment business into the new “silicon systems group,” and remains “focused on improving operational efficiencies and the cost structure of our businesses, as well as enhancing our ability to pursue growth opportunities.”

The news wasn’t a surprise to at least one analyst. FBR Research’s Mehdi Hosseini said in a Dec. 21 research note that AMAT would likely trim headcount in the Jan/Feb timeframe (though he expected a ~10% reduction), spurred by declines in the silicon group’s business, attributed to weak orders from memory makers and foundries — down 20%-25% Q-Q in the Jan. quarter (fiscal 1Q08), and down another 5%-10% in April (2Q08). He speculated that some of the employees would be moved to the company’s solar business, which has more promising near-term growth, though it also has seen some delays of several quarters for revenues of thin-film systems (attributed to parts delays from third-party vendors, e.g. transparent conductor oxide and in-line metrology). Hosseini did point to projections of a big spike in AMAT’s display business in the Jan. quarter.

January 13, 2008 — Engineers at MIT are developing a tiny sensor that could be used to detect minute quantities of hazardous gases, including toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents, much more quickly than current devices.

The researchers have taken the common techniques of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry and shrunk them to fit in a device the size of a computer mouse. Eventually, the team, led by MIT Professor Akintunde Ibitayo Akinwande, plans to build a detector about the size of a matchbox.

“Everything we’re doing has been done on a macro scale. We are just scaling it down,” said Akinwande, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and member of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL).

Akinwande and MIT research scientist Luis Velasquez-Garcia plan to present their work at the MEMS 2008 conference Jan. 13-17 in Arizona. In December, they presented at the International Electronic Devices Meeting.

Scaling down gas detectors makes them much easier to use in a real-world environment, where they could be dispersed in a building or outdoor area. Making the devices small also reduces the amount of power they consume and enhances their sensitivity to trace amounts of gases, Akinwande said.

He is leading an international team that includes scientists from the University of Cambridge, the University of Texas at Dallas, Clean Earth Technology and Raytheon, as well as MIT.

Their detector uses gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to identify gas molecules by their telltale electronic signatures. Current versions of portable GC-MS machines, which take about 15 minutes to produce results, are around 40,000 cubic centimeters, about the size of a full paper grocery bag, and use 10,000 joules of energy.

The new, smaller version consumes about four joules and produces results in about four seconds.

The device, which the researchers plan to have completed within two years, could be used to help protect water supplies or for medical diagnostics, as well as to detect hazardous gases in the air.

The analyzer works by breaking gas molecules into ionized fragments, which can be detected by their specific charge (ratio of charge to molecular weight).

Gas molecules are broken apart either by stripping electrons off the molecules, or by bombarding them with electrons stripped from carbon nanotubes. The fragments are then sent through a long, narrow electric field. At the end of the field, the ions’ charges are converted to voltage and measured by an electrometer, yielding the molecules’ distinctive electronic signature.

Shrinking the device greatly reduces the energy needed to power it, in part because much of the energy is dedicated to creating a vacuum in the chamber where the electric field is located.

Another advantage of the small size is that smaller systems can be precisely built using microfabrication. Also, batch-fabrication will allow the detectors to be produced inexpensively.

The research, which started three years ago, is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass.

January 10, 2008 — Nanophase Technologies Corp. (Nasdaq: NANX), which manufactures nanomaterials and advanced nanoengineered products, has been issued a new patent. U.S. Patent No. 7,303,819, titled “Surface Treatment of Nanoparticles to Control Interfacial Properties and Method of Manufacture.”

The patent discloses the formation of surface treated nanoparticles with looped and/or linear polymeric structure on a star-graft polymer coating. According to Nanophase, the innovation is a novel surface treatment that controls the interfacial properties of the nanoparticle with controlled polymer physical properties and controlled polymeric chemical properties.

The company said the work described in this patent overcomes a number of problems long associated with the use of nanoparticles in product formulations, such as component reactivity, nanoparticle compatibility, and the formation of stable dispersions, suspensions, and emulsions.

In addition, the patented surface treatment enables control of the particle-matrix interface in a bulk or thin film composite and can strongly affect the amount of free volume in the composite material. With this technology, composite properties such as glass transition temperature, flexure strength, interaction with liquid and gas sorbents, the transport of sorbent materials, dielectric and magnetic properties may be controlled by the judicious selection of the nanoparticle surface treatment.

Jan. 10, 2008 – Coming off a year in which it significantly changed its focus and carved out multiple businesses, Nanometrics is starting the new year where it left off.

The move, a response increasing softness in semiconductor capital equipment demand, will reduce the company’s global workforce by about 7%, affecting each of its worldwide locations. Restructuring charges of about $600K will be recorded in 1Q08, but cost savings will be “fully realized ” by 2Q08, according to president/CEO Tim Stultz. “While this was a difficult decision for us to make, it came about as a result of our stated strategy to run our business with reduced sensitivity to revenue level,” he said in a statement.

Stultz added that the company still holds a positive longer-term outlook about the metrology sector, and that the company is well-positioned in its markets and will remain “committed to investing in R&D.”

Nanometrics has had a busy past year, after acquiring two metrology firms in the summer of 2006 (Soluris and Accent Optical Technologies). In March of 2007 its CEO left the company, followed by the CFO and April. In the fall it sold off its Yosemite CD-SEM and DiVA product lines, consolidated its overlay metrology production in Korea (and closed the Soluris site in Concord, MA), sold an idle FPD-related facility in Japan and a machine/plating shop in the US, and appointed former Imago top exec Stultz as its new CEO.

January 9, 2008 — Carbon Nanoprobes Inc. (CN Probes), a company specializing in devices that serve the nanotechnology and biotechnology industries, has closed an A-round of investment capital and has hired more managers.

The funding will be used to complete development and launch of CN Probes’ flagship product, a carbon nanotube probe tip for the atomic force microscope (AFM), the company said in a news release.

The product is an imaging platform that will allow scientists and engineers in multiple fields, from biotechnology to chip fabrication to “see more and know more,” the company said.

“We take pictures of tiny things. We’re nanophotographers and our pictures have value to scientists in multiple fields,” said Brian Ruby, the company’s 24-year-old chief executive.

The PowerstrateXtreme Dispensable (PSX-D) phase change material in liquid form offers many of the usability and throughput advantages of thermal greases without the drawbacks inherent with some thermal grease applications. As a paste medium, Henkel’s PSX-D alleviates the challenges associated with phase change films and the shortcomings of thermal greases by incorporating phase change performance into a liquid product. Because the material is a paste, PSX-D’s thickness can be adjusted depending on the requirement, offering manufacturers considerable flexibility as only one material, not various films of different thicknesses, must be procured. The material can be stenciled, needle-dispensed, screen-printed or manually applied onto a heat sink or other surfaces, eliminating the need for additional equipment investment and improving throughput. PSX-D has been optimized as a TIM2 material for use between microprocessors, IGBT, FBDIMM/Memory, GPU, multichip modules, ASICs and their active heat sinks. The material is also re-workable and repeatable. Henkel, Irvine, CA, www.henkel.com/electronics.

Jan. 2, 2008 – Global demand for semiconductor equipment made by North American-based manufacturers didn’t improve much in November, according to recent data from SEMI.

Bookings slipped again to $1149.5M, about 2% below October and more than -19% off from Nov. 2006. Billings of $1393.9M accelerated their decline from October, down about 6% both M-M and Y-Y.

In a statement, SEMI president Stanley Myers noted that the slowdown in bookings is tied to “a tremendous amount of 300mm capacity” that has come online in the past year, so chipmakers are slowing their investments in near-future capacity additions — a trend that he noted is “consistent with concerns about the economy as a whole.”

Updating high (or low) points that we’ve been tracking for several months, showing some of the less pretty equipment sector numbers:

– In terms of dollars, November bookings were the lowest since late 2005, down -30% since a peak in May ($1641.9B).
– A similar six-month streak of Y-Y double-digit % declines hasn’t been seen since late 2005 (July-Nov).
– Billings (in US$) have fallen -22% since a peak in June ($1786.1).
– Five straight months of Y-Y % declines in both tool orders and sales.
– The B:B is now at five straight months of <0.84 (not since Feb-April 2005), and 10 months below parity and counting — the previous ministreak was four months in Aug-Nov 2006, and before that, 17 months spanning late 2004-early 2006.

North American equipment bookings, billings — November 2006-November 2007

Month…….Billings…….%M-M………%Y-Y……….Bookings……..%M-M……..% Y-Y………B:B
……………..(US $M)…………………………………………….(US $M)…………………………………..
………………(3-mo. avg.)………………………………….(3-mo.avg.)……………………………………..

Oct’06…………..1562.9……-6.6%……..36.4%……….1468.6……-10.4%…….34.3%……..0.94
Nov’06…………..1486.1……-4.9%……..26.0%……….1426.5…….-2.8%…….30.5%……..0.96
Dec’06…………..1482.3……-0.2%……..21.1%……….1497.2……..5.0%…….31.0%……..1.01
Jan’07…………..1448.0……-2.3%……..15.0%……….1445.8…….-3.4%…….17.9%……..1.00
Feb’07………….1423.0……-1.3%……..11.3%……….1398.1…….-3.1%……..8.3%……..0.98
Mar’07………….1436.4……..0.9%……….7.3%………..1419.6………1.5%…….2.5%……..0.99
Apr’07………….1594.7……..11.0%……..10.1%………1567.5………10.4%…..-2.1%……..0.98
May’07………….1670.2……..4.7%………15.0%………1641.9………4.7%…….1.4%……..0.98
June’07…………1768.1……..5.9%……….13.5%……..1607.6……..-2.1%……-9.8%……..0.91
July’07………….1685.8…….-4.7%……..2.9%………..1406.3…….-12.5%…..-18.9%……..0.83
Aug’07…………1682.3……-0.2%……..-3.5%……….1371.2…….-2.5%……-20.7%……..0.82
Sept’07………..1557.4…….-7.4%……..-6.9%……….1235.0……-9.9%……-24.7%……..0.79
Oct’07 (f)………1477.5……-5.1%……..-5.5%……….1176.9…….-4.7%……-19.9%……..0.80
Nov’07 (p)…….1393.9……-5.7%……..-6.2%……….1149.5…….-2.3%……-19.4%……..0.82

BY HERBERT STÜRMANN, Hesse & Knipps GmbH

Current methods of monitoring wire bond quality for both heavy and fine wire applications fall short of enabling the goal of 100% yield. A process integrated quality control (PIQC) system that was developed to monitor the most applicable and significant measures for judging bond quality addresses these limitations.

Several different methods of monitoring bond quality have been developed and implemented throughout the 20-year history of wire bonding. However, the few methods currently used in actual production – including non-destructive pull test and shear test methods, optical inspection methods and monitoring of transducer current and wire deformation – fall short of enabling the goal of 100% yield.

A mechanical, non-destructive pull test can be integrated into heavy wire bonders for applications with 5 mil wire size or above. These tests raise questions about the right choice of force to apply during the pulling process. Uncertainty regarding the amount of force required to judge bond quality adequately, along with the risk of weakening a bond by the pull test process itself are concerns. Wire bonding equipment users must also consider that integrated pull testing is only able to detect selected failure modes. In addition, the time necessary for this test is added to the total cycle time, reducing throughput. Understandably, this mechanical test is often only applied for statistical purposes where the loss of throughput can reach 20 to 30% – and not frequently used during regular production.


Figure 1. Wire-bonding head with integrated pull and shear test.
Click here to enlarge image

In addition to the mechanical pull test, a shear test integrated into the heavy wire bonding head exists (Figure 2). This bondhead technology leads to significant improvement in detecting possible failure modes. For example, a wire bonded onto a contaminated surface might hold just enough strength so that it is not detected by the pull method, however may easily pop off when undergoing a shear test. Due to the stiffness in the loop absorbing the pull force, any wire that is connected just slightly is likely to withstand a pull test but can be detected as a failure with a shear test.

In contrast, shear testing measures the quality of the inter-metallic connection. During the shear-test process, the original looping geometry remains untouched and no force is used on the wire. Therefore, the risk of weakening and reducing the quality of the bond by the quality test itself is reduced. The impact on process time with shear testing falls into the same magnitude as with integrated pull testing.

Integrated shear and pull tests aid in improving bond quality control, however neither can detect all possible failures. In addition to the time for testing and the potential to weaken the bonds by the tests themselves, these methods are inherently uncertain because it is difficult to determine the force and time adequate to test bonds without damaging them.

Deformation measurements, although a large contributor to improving quality, are only partially suitable for quality monitoring or active control systems.

Another significant contributor is seen in the transducer current. Deviations in the progression of ultrasonic impedance can indicate when welding has not occured or the wire has been lost. However, if the wire is partially or poorly connected, this method does not detect a failure.

The PIQC Method

The limitations of these methods can be eliminated with PIQC. Once implemented, existing mechanical non-destructive tests may become unnecessary, or can be used on selected conspicuous bonds indicated by a low quality index from the PIQC test. Such selective non-destructive tests are more efficient than 100% pull or shear tests, and can confirm failures detected as a result of 100% PIQC testing (Figure 2).


Figure 2. The PIQC concept
Click here to enlarge image

The goal of PIQC is to monitor the most applicable and significant measures for judging bond quality and can include mechanical vibration, transducer current, wire deformation, resonance frequency, and scrub behavior during the welding process. Acquiring data in real-time during the bond process avoids impact on machine throughput, allowing throughput-neutral, 100% quality control. This quality control system relies only on actual data, without any statistical assumptions.


Figure 3. PIQC oscillation sensor
Click here to enlarge image

To reach PIQC functionality, an additional sensor was added to the transducer to provide relevant feedback data for calculating a bond quality value (Figure 3). This assures real-time feedback of the conditions at the wedge tool tip – providing feedback on its movement. The real-time feedback from these sensor signals is gained through an additional interface in a proprietary ultrasonic generator which uses recently developed FPGA circuitry.

PIQC’s multi-dimensional control system includes decision-relevant oscillations at the wedge tool tip, the transducer current, the resonance frequency, friction, and wire deformation to complete the quality assessment.

All acquired real-time feedback signals are statistically analyzed in the PIQC box based on a mathematical decision model. The control algorithms are implemented in very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL). The PIQC box allows derivation of extensive quality statements.

PIQC Quality Indices

Signal feedback and processing allows detailed analysis of welding, and translation into an optimized reference process. The PIQC box calculates a quality index for each bond based on actual feedback and reference data, which can be displayed graphically at any time.

After the learning phase, the PIQC box can directly recognize deviations in real-time, which can then be classified and interpreted by the user. It is possible to link signal deviations directly to a specific failure mode, enabling process specialists to react faster on problems with incoming material, contamination, or insufficient clamping. Without PIQC, these problems are detected only after destructive statistical testing that is not in real-time. With PIQC, the real-time signal feedback for friction and wedge tip mechanical oscillation is mathematically transformed, and along with additional information from the ultrasonic generator, provides indicators for surface contamination.

Conclusion

Under laboratory conditions, 6000 bonds were analyzed on contaminated and non-contaminated bond surfaces. The PIQC box was able to detect the pre-defined area with “good” and “bad” bonds (Figure 4). Data collected through extensive testing reveals process variations due to changes in surface conditions, and also detects variations in clamping conditions of both the substrate and the wedge tool.


Figure 4. PIQC sample results
Click here to enlarge image

PIQC is a multi-dimensional control system for wire bond quality. All physically relevant measures are evaluated in real-time with an individual quality index with which to compare ongoing data.

This method defines possibilities for ultrasonic bonding quality control. In the future, mechanical pull and shear testing will become unnecessary as their associated yield losses disappear while PIQC brings manufacturers closer to a 100% yield.

* developed and patented by Hesse & Knipps GmbH.

HERBERT STÜRMANN, sales and marketing manager, may be contacted at Hesse & Knipps GmbH; Vattmannstrasse 6 D-33100 Paderborn, Germany; +49/0 5251 1560-0; E-mail: [email protected]

According to a subcommittee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Science Board, the nation’s food supply is at risk, as are the regulatory systems that oversee the nation’s drug and device supplies. In a report presented in December, the subcommittee attributed the deficiencies to increased demands on FDA and resources that have not increased in proportion to those demands. Committee members conclude that “this imbalance is imposing a significant risk to the integrity of the food, drug, cosmetic, and device regulatory system, and hence the safety of the public.”

The result of a year-long review by a distinguished panel of experts, the subcommittee’s 300-page report concludes that the state of FDA’s scientific and regulatory programs could not be separated from the lack of resources. It urged funds to support the agency’s scientific base, hire a broadly capable scientific workforce, and build a sophisticated, modern information technology infrastructure.

Upon the report’s release, Don Kennedy, PhD, a former FDA commissioner and editor-in-chief of Science magazine, and also a member of the FDA Alliance, an advocacy organization formed in 2006, commented that “FDA can’t improve its science, prepare for the future, or protect American consumers without significant additional resources. Congress is negotiating FDA’s FY 2008 [current year] budget right now and can start to fix this critical problem.”

The cry for more FDA resources was echoed by the Coalition for a Stronger FDA, which comprises patient groups, non-profit organizations, consumer and public health advocates, and innovative companies
with the goal of working alongside policymakers to bolster and preserve public confidence in FDA. “Over the last decade, complex scientific advances, globalization, and challenging new safety issues have combined to multiply the responsibilities of the FDA. As this new report makes clear, our expectations cannot exceed the resources we give FDA to accomplish its mission. In this regard, more is definitely better,” said Mark McClellan, MD, former FDA commissioner and chairman of the new Reagan-Udall Institute.

Particles

compiled by Carrie Meadows
USP <797> revisions now available
The U.S. Pharmacopeia has posted the Revision Bulletin containing changes to General Chapter Pharmaceutical Compounding–Sterile Preparations <797> on its web site at http://www.usp.org/USPNF/pf/generalChapter797.html. The revisions will become official on June 1, 2008, and will be included in USP 32