Category Archives: Metrology

AmberWave Systems, Salem, NH, and ADE Corp., Westwood, MA, are joining forces to qualify ADE’s line of inspection and metrology tools to measure strained silicon wafers. ADE products now qualified for metrology include the Film Inspection Tool for surface particle inspection, AcuMap high-speed film thickness mapping system, and UltraGage 9900 for wafer dimensional certification. Other ADE products waiting to be qualified include WaferSight, Advanced Flatness System, and the NanoMapper surface nanotopography tool.

“Our goal is to make it easy for device manufacturers and wafer manufacturers to find the quickest and lowest-risk path to implementing and achieving the benefits of strained silicon,” said AmberWave CEO Mitch Tyson.

Strained silicon transistors and circuits, which are currently being fabricated with 90nm- and 130nm-node processes, can increase circuit speed and reduce power consumption over bulk silicon circuits. Standard metrology doesn’t work with silicon wafers, however, due to complexities introduced by the use of a silicon germanium buffer that has different properties than normal silicon. SiGe and strained silicon remain promising technologies because they are compatible with CMOS and can utilize current production lines.

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WASHINGTON, June 20, 2003  — It wasn’t a headline that the scientist liked much: “Clayton Teague Thinks Small,” blared the North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) student newspaper.

That was 1968, and Teague was a graduate student at the time. Now, he’s the first full-time director of the federal National Nanotechnology Coordination Office  (NNCO), and he’s thinking even more infinitesimally. Teague has spent his career helping the federal government explore the world at the nanoscale. The visible contours of that world have grown during Teague’s more than 30 years of federal service, thanks in part to his work.

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Teague is a white-goateed, compact man with a friendly Georgia lilt to his deep voice and a healthy laugh. The University of North Texas physics Ph.D. has devoted his life to nanoscale metrology and quantum tunneling, serving as editor in chief for a decade of the journal Nanotechnology, where he currently sits on the editorial board. The research, including a host of publications and patents, has all been done during his long career with what is now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Before starting his new assignment with the NNCO April 15, he was chief of NIST’s Manufacturing Metrology Division.

During an interview at his National Science Foundation office in Arlington, Va., he championed nanotechnology as a great potential economic and social balm for the nation, and he pledged to use his office to help knit together the many scientific and research threads comprising nanotechnology today, from simulation and modeling to biotechnology to materials science.

These are interesting times for the federal government’s role in nanotechnology. Since President Bill Clinton launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2000, the program has more than quadrupled in size, in terms of federal dollars poured into the science. Both houses of Congress have held multiple nanotechnology hearings, and they are pushing along bills that would cement the NNI in the federal bureaucracy and launch new initiatives, including the creation of a research center that would examine environmental, health and social aspects of nanotechnology.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has grown sharply interested in the NNI, in part because of the ballooning amount of nanotechnology spending that it tracks, which is approaching $1 billion. That heightened oversight has led to demands that the NNI produce more results. At a June meeting, members of the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology  urged the NNI to devote at least part of its administrative energy to finding an inspiring central goal for nanotechnology research, something akin to sending a man to the moon.

Teague sits smack in the center of this mounting whorl of federal activity.

He got a sense of how demanding the job would be during his first week, when a Senate staffer called him to testify the following week at a hearing.

“That was a big deal to me,” said Teague in his spare office, where boxes were still unpacked. “It was the first time I had ever given testimony before Congress. It was a totally new experience, and it was the second week on the job.”

Teague is the perfect leader for the job because, among other things, “he’s very organized,” said NNI director Mike Roco. “That will help because the activity (surrounding nanotechnology) is becoming very intense.”

Teague spends his days meeting with congressional and White House staffers to talk about nanotechnology policy. He also listens to a lot of people in different agencies working on nanotechnology projects, and Teague views this work as a primary responsibility, at least for now.

He said he wants his office to “make sure we give them good representation” in the White House.

In addition, nanotechnology is unusually multidisciplinary, and for the federal government to realize the science’s potential, agencies are going to have to pool resources and work together.

Teague is concerned about the public perception of nanotechnology, and he plans to use the office to educate people about the science. While many tout the promise of nanotechnology, critics point to the science’s unknown environmental and social consequences. 

“The scientific community will address this in a very, very direct way, and if materials are being introduced into the environment or the workplace, standard procedures that are now in place” to deal with other elements will be applied to nanoparticles.

“Right now almost all of the studies that have been done, where they look at (the toxicity of nanoparticles), are preliminary and certainly of a nonconclusive nature,” he said. “It would be too early to draw any conclusions about any undue levels of toxicity. There is not enough evidence to believe that these things are unusually toxic.”

Mark Modzelewski, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, said Teague is “extraordinarily competent.”

“He’s been doing this stuff forever,” Modzelewski said. “Aside from being a competent manager, he’s also very likeable. So it’s a great combination.”

Ideally, he said, Teague will toil to make the office “not something that mirrors a National Science Foundation program, which is funding universities, but looking at business.”

The office should “play this role in the center making sure all of the pieces of the government know about it and are moving forward with it.”

June 18, 2003 – San Jose, CA – Ultratech (formerly Ultratech Stepper) has added a new metrology system to its nanotechnology initiative.

The UltraMet 100, measures the alignment of images on a wafer, for any or every die on a wafer. It is optimized to work in conjunction with Ultratech’s Nanotech 160 dual-side-alignment stepper, to offer wafer-handling automation for high-volume MEMS and nanotechnology processes.

Availability is scheduled for 4Q03, with initial target markets to include R&D and pilot production applications.

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There's a buzz surrounding the topic of advanced process controls (APC) in the semiconductor manufacturing community; and like many freshly evolving, technologically-based concepts, the terms and applications are almost constantly being re-engineered.

In a nutshell, APC involves observing processes and wafers, and automatically making the changes to a particular process to instantaneously improve the process. The idea stems from Statistical Process Control (SPC), where product data, such as metrology readings, are analyzed to figure out whether a process is deviating from statistical norms.

SPC, however, is only capable of detecting a few deviations, and isn't capable of drilling down to the root cause of the deviation. APC is designed to pinpoint the cause; and, once detected, the product “recipe” can be modified in between runs to minimize process drift, leading to increased tool capability and higher yields.

The idea behind APC has made its way into the semiconductor-manufacturing mainstream, and is considered essential for 130 nm and 300 mm. Many fabs have installed home-grown solutions, while others are in the process of working with partners to help cut the cost of development and institute advanced APC for high-volume 300-mm manufacturing—the AMD, UMC joint venture in Singapore springs to mind.

While APCs are serving as the latest, process-specific weapon in wafer-level contamination control, the next battle will be tying together advanced automation, software, and in-process sensors to give fab managers unprecedented factory-wide control.

This month, APC and e-diagnostic specialist Alan Weber gives CleanRooms' readers a healthy overview of the terms that define APC, as well as an estimation of the time, money and personnel necessary to make it work (page 20). He strongly suggests that fab owners start working with suppliers as true “partners” on the path to APC integration. In a future issue of CleanRooms, Brooks Automation's James Moyne will offer a detailed look into factory-wide APC strategies.

These advanced technologies are going to take time and money on their way to changing how future fabs are designed and managed. We'll be following who picks up the tab and how quickly top management jumps on board as APC proponents make their pitch for further time, people and resources.

Michael A. Levans
Chief Editor

March 27, 2003 — Applied Materials Inc. announced it will lay off 14 percent of its work force this year as part of an overall cost-cutting plan.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of equipment for wafer fabrication as well as metrology and inspection said it will cut about 1,400 positions in North America by the end of the second quarter. It will eliminate an additional 600 jobs at other locations by year’s end.

The company expects the restructuring plan to cost up to $425 million during the next four quarters, according to a news release. More than half will be spent consolidating facilities, primarily in California and Texas.

March 14, 2002 — Therma-Wave Inc., a Fremont, Calif., manufacturer of process control metrology systems, appointed Papken Der Torossian as chairman, according to a company news release.

Der Torossian was formerly president of ECS Microsystems and of the Santa Cruz Division of Plantronics Inc. He has served on the boards of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and the Semiconductor Industry Supplier Association. He was chairman of the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International Environmental, Health & Safety Committee and as been chairman of Semi/Sematech.

He said in the news release that he will work alongside Boris Lipkin, Therma-Wave president and chief executive, to prepare the company for the next industry upturn.

March 12, 2003 — Veeco Instruments Inc., a Woodbury, N.Y., provider of metrology tools and process equipment, said it has opened an office in Shanghai, China, to support recent orders in the country.

The company said in a news release that it recently received orders from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among others. The Shanghai office is slated to have 10 or more employees by the end of the year.

The release quoted Edward Braun, Veeco’s chairman and chief executive, calling China the company’s fastest growth region for microelectronics and research markets.

March 12, 2003 — FEI Co., a Hillsboro, Ore., developer of metrology products, announced release of a new scanning electron microscope.

The Quanta environmental SEM is intended for various applications in the materials, life sciences, automotive, metallurgy and pharmaceutical industries. The device features three imaging modes and is designed to provide high resolution imaging without charging samples.

By: Kay Lederer, Infineon Technologies SC300, Dresden, Germany
Barry Saville, Ingrid Peterson, KLA-Tencor, San Jose, California

As the semiconductor industry continues to push toward the 90nm node, controlling defect density in the lithography cell becomes ever more critical to the success of the overall manufacturing process. Thinner resists, new resist chemistries, tighter design rules and process windows, as well as shorter product life cycles, have placed greater demands on achieving and maintaining low defect densities.

Establishing new defect management methodologies that can achieve low defect densities has quickly become as important as critical dimension (CD) and overlay metrology in the development and implementation of new lithography processes.

In recent work at Infineon Technologies SC300, we conducted defect detection experiments on 300mm Czochralski (Cz) wafers using the following conditions: exposure by scanners, a single puddle-develop process with 2.38% TMAH containing surfactant, defect inspection on a KLA-Tencor 2351 series high-resolution imaging inspection tool, and defect review on an inspection tilt scanning electron microscope (SEM).

Read the complete article in a pdf format.

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Feb. 5, 2003 – Marlborough, MA – Shipley Company LLC, has opened its Advanced Technology Center (ATC), a facility dedicated to the development of lithography, interconnect, low-k dielectric and other critical materials.

Shipley, a subsidiary of Rohm and Haas Co., has invested $30 million in the center.

The new 65,000 square-foot ATC building represents the first phase of Shipley’s multi-phase plans for the center. Leo Linehan, director of R&D for Shipley Microelectronics, will manage the ATC’s day-to-day operations and research staff.

Initial ATC programs are focused on the fast-cycle development of new 193nm photoresists and anti-reflectant coatings used in photolithographic processes. Additional programs are expected to focus on the continued development and integration of low-k dielectrics, copper interconnect and later generation lithography materials supporting 157nm, EUV and e-beam technologies.

The ATC’s Class I cleanroom is home to a 193nm exposure systems and the latest in track technology. The new building also includes a comprehensive metrology and modeling facility. Designed for modular cleanroom expansion, the ATC includes an additional 65,000 square feet that would enable Shipley to double the size of the facility in the future.