Category Archives: Metrology

Feb. 7, 2005 — FEI Co., a Hillsboro, Ore., maker of nanotech tools, and IMEC, a Leuven, Belgium-based nanoelectronics and nanotechnology research center, announced today they have commenced a joint development project for advanced metrology and analysis techniques for sub-45nm technologies.

The project will focus on providing diagnostic information at ultra-high resolution of the processes in a production environment for 45nm and smaller technologies. IMEC will use FEI’s UltraView tools in the process R&D pilot line.

Recent equipment orders


February 2, 2005

Recent equipment orders include:

Axcelis Technologies Inc. has announced that a leading European chipmaker has selected its new 300mm single-wafer ion implantation platform. Axcelis said that the customer chose this platform because of its ability to address a broad range of implant applications, including low energy HALO processes.

Mattson Technology Inc. has announced that it has shipped multiple advanced strip systems to Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.. In addition, Samsung has placed follow-on orders for Mattson’s rapid thermal processing (RTP) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) systems.

Royal Philips Electronics today announced that its metrology business unit, Philips Advanced Metrology Systems Inc. (Philips AMS), has received a multi-unit order for its series 3300 copper metrology tool from AMD Saxony LLC & Co. KG, Dresden, Germany, a subsidiary of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) in Sunnyvale, CA. AMD will incorporate the Philips AMS equipment as a metal metrology tool for on-line production monitoring of the copper/low-k process for both 200mm and 300mm fabs and has been running the Philips AMS Series 3300 at its Dresden fab for several months.

January 24, 2005 – Nanometrics Inc. and August Technology Corp. have entered into a merger agreement to create a combined company providing inspection, measurement and analysis systems. The combined company will be named August Nanometrics Inc., and the companies said they expect to close the transaction during the 2Q05.

“The merger will create a company employing over 550 people worldwide with combined proforma 2004 revenues of approximately $140 million and a strong balance sheet providing increased financial resources to support global microelectronic device manufacturers.” Stan Piekos, currently the CFO of August Technology, said. Piekos will be the CFO of the combined company.

The board of directors of the combined company will consist of seven directors — three directors selected from the Nanometrics board, including Vincent J. Coates and John Heaton, and three directors selected from the August Technology board, including Jeff O’Dell. Coates, currently chairman of the board of directors of Nanometrics, will be chairman of the board of directors of the combined company; Heaton, currently the CEO of Nanometrics, will be the CEO of the combined company; and Stan Piekos, currently the CFO of August Technology, will be the CFO of the combined company. O’Dell will remain as a principle executive of the combined company, remaining active in areas of strategic marketing and planning, reporting directly to John Heaton.

The combined company will offer complementary product lines of yield maximizing metrology and defect inspection. “This merger makes great business sense,” said Heaton. “We join two strong product lines with little overlap, and bring to market a better fab-wide solution with advanced macro inspection, critical dimension, and film thickness metrology.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Nanometrics will reincorporate in Delaware, each share of Nanometrics common stock will be exchanged for one share of Nanometrics Delaware (a subsidiary of Nanometrics formed in connection with the reincorporation), and each share of August Technology common stock will be exchanged for 0.6401 of a share of Nanometrics Delaware.

The transaction is conditioned on obtaining requisite shareholder approvals from the shareholders of both companies, necessary regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions, including the receipt of legal opinions that the transaction will qualify as a “reorganization” under the Internal Revenue Code.

Jan. 21, 2005 — Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced the introduction of a new optical profiler to address metrology challenges in the printed electronics industry.

The WykoNT4800 profiler is intended for applications in organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays, radio frequency identification tags (RFID), biosensors and other flexible circuit devices.

It combines high-speed, high-resolution optical profiling with large format staging and is intended for critical R&D and production metrology applications, such as surface shape and texture measurement, according to a company release.

October 18, 2004 – Materials metrology supplier Semilab R.T., Budapest, Hungary, has completed its acquisition of SemiTest Inc., Billerica, MA, the companies said Friday.

Semilab has acquired substantially all of SemiTest’s assets; the transaction was structured as a purchase of all assets related to the metrology company’s SCA and Epimet product lines. The cash amount involved wasn’t disclosed.

Semilab in turn has formed a new division for development and marketing of semiconductor device manufacturing metrology. The new business unit will retain the SemiTest name and will be housed in a new facility in Billerica, according to Semilab.

Semilab’s SemiTest Division will provide support for the company’s legacy product lines, and will also integrate technology derived from the Hungarian parent company for 200mm and 300mm SemiTest metrology systems, the companies said.

October 7, 2004 – KLA-Tencor Corp., San Jose, CA, and Belgium-based research center IMEC have begun a joint development project to accelerate adoption of optical critical-dimension (CD) metrology technology for sub-65nm semiconductor applications.

The project will focus on two areas: extending the use of optical CD metrology in current applications such as shallow-trench isolation and gate to the sub-65-nm node, and expanding the proliferation of optical CD metrology into new applications such as 3D contact and via layers. Research will be conducted using KLA-Tencor’s SpectraCD 100 system for optical CD metrology.

“Maintaining control over the lithography process continues to remain one of the most pressing challenges that chipmakers face as they drive deeper into the nano realm,” stated IMEC VP Luc Van den hove, noting that optical CD metrology “has demonstrated its viability” in 90nm production for controlling critical patterning steps.

“Optical CD metrology plays an increasingly critical role in the IC fab in ensuring that patterning processes are controlled during production,” stated David Fisher, optical CD business unit manager at KLA-Tencor, and working with IMEC “will yield new insights into advanced lithography that will help ease our customers’ transition to future technology nodes” and meet their roadmap requirements.

October 6, 2004 – The Semiconductor Company of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. has joined the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) effective Oct. 1, becoming the newest member of a global alliance of semiconductor companies focused exclusively on manufacturing effectiveness, officials of SEMATECH announced today.

ISMI, a subsidiary of SEMATECH, was formed earlier this year as a new consortium dedicated to helping semiconductor manufacturers improve factory productivity and reduce cost per wafer, and ultimately cost per die. Other ISMI members include AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Infineon, Intel, Freescale, Philips, Texas Instruments and TSMC.

“Shrinking device features at advanced technology nodes are making it more difficult to maintain yield and productivity, and e-manufacturing is indispensable in solving this problem,” said Dr. Michihiro Inoue, director of Matsushita’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology Center. “Matsushita anticipates that ISMI membership will give us productivity solutions for future challenges in our manufacturing fabs, allowing us to achieve best-in-class levels of productivity.”

ISMI’s core programs include fab productivity, equipment productivity, metrology, and environment/safety/health. The consortium conducts projects within those program areas, guided in the short term by installed base industry needs, and in the longer term by critical strategic manufacturing requirements defined by consortium members.

October 4, 2004 – KLA-Tencor Corp. announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Candela Instruments, Fremont, CA, a supplier of laser-based surface inspection systems optimized for the data storage industry.

According to KLA-Tencor president and CEO Ken Schroeder, “Candela’s optical surface analyzers add another important core technology to our growing portfolio of inspection and metrology solutions for the data storage industry.”

Founded in 1997, Candela Instruments has developed an inspection technology called optical surface analysis (OSA) for both opaque and transparent films and substrates. With more than 180 tools installed, Candela has also developed offerings for the inspection of transparent wafers and films in industries such as high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and coated glass for liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) applications.

October 1, 2004 – Veeco Instruments Inc. and The Dow Chemical Co. have received $6.6 million in funding from the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Technology Program for a three-year project to develop a quantitative nano-mechanical measurement instrument.

Veeco and Dow’s proposal was one of 32 selected for award funding from a total of 870 proposals following a rigorous peer-reviewed selection process. Veeco and Dow propose to jointly develop and validate a platform for high speed, high bandwidth, quantitative nano-mechanical measurements (QNM) on length scales smaller than 50nm, on a wide range of materials.

Successful completion of this proposal would lead to the creation of a new measurement platform enabling the development of nanomaterials. The QNM will be developed at Veeco. The platform will be based on recently demonstrated advancements in atomic force microscopy.

“The motivation for this project is to remove a fundamental limitation in the development of nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are forecasted to be a multi-billion dollar industry, but material scientists currently lack the ability to accurately and quickly map the mechanical properties of many materials on the nanoscale. Our program will provide a solution,” commented Anthony Martinez, Senior VP, GM, Veeco Metrology.

June 16, 2004 – Sopra, a French supplier of metrology tools for thin films, has licensed ellipsometric porosimetry (EP) patents from European research center IMEC.

Sopra plans to incorporate the R&D EP technology, which monitors porosity, pore size distribution, surface area, and pore interconnectivity in thin films, into a commercial tool to be introduced this summer.

Sopra’s forthcoming product will offer several EP models with gradual automation capacbilities, from manual EP5 to models with mapping capabilities for 200mm and 300mm wafers, said Sopra CEO Marc Stehle.

“Ellipsometric porosimetry has been a key enabler to study low-k materials properties as well as some of their integration issues,” added Rudi Cartuyvels, IMEC director of interconnect technologies and technology options.