Table of Contents
Solid State Technology
Year 2000 Issue 7
| DEPARTMENTS
Editorial
Remember that song with the great disco beat? They should be playing it at Semi West this year. From the bottom of the doldrums in 1997 and 1998, the semiconductor processing industry enters the new millennium with the most triumphant revival in its history.
Eurofocus STMicro's new fab
The Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin, recently inaugurated Rousset8, STMicroelectronics' latest 200mm wafer fab.
Literature New Literature
Machining stock brochure; Motion control catalog; Temperature sensing catalog; and more.
New Products Product panorama/Product news
In situ temperature monitoring/analysis; ow-pressure dry pump; Quadrupole mass spectrometer; and more.
People People
Genus Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, has appointed George Wells; Entegris Inc., Chaska, MN, has promoted John Goodman; Jim Dauwalter has been promoted to COO; and more.
World News World News
Worldwide Highlights; USA; Japan; Asia Pacific; and Europe.
Tech News Technology News
Sematech evaluations show promise for porous "extra low-k" dielectrics; Motorola demonstrates universal memory technology; CVD tungsten extends MEMS lifetime by order of magnitude ...
Asiafocus Asia Focus
Japanese chipmakers lower costs with design/process integration, wafer-scale packaging; Wafer-scale packaging will become a low-cost alternative by 2003 ...
Market Watch Improving the forecasts
Whether an industry-wide outlook, regional growth projection, or product sales forecast, it seems that we're always talking about how to get better forecasts.
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FEATURES
Industry Insights SECS is overrated
Have you ever tried to suck a baseball through a straw? Getting vital information from semiconductor tools via the SECS interface is like that. Suck hard enough on the straw: the best you will get is a mangled baseball.
Deposition Liners for tungsten plug applications with long throw and ionized PVD
The properties of Ti contact and TiN barrier layers deposited by PVD are shown to depend on the target-to-substrate distance. A long throw process, combined with low chamber pressure, extends PVD processes below 0.17mm design rules. Ionized PVD processing extends PVD capability even further.
Deposition Factors influencing damascene feature fill using copper PVD and electroplating
This article presents several determinant factors for successful integration of PVD copper seed and electroplating. A general description of copper-plating chemistries is given. Based on a large volume of experimental work, a summary of filling trends and observations is provided, along with two proposed mechanisms for bottom-up fill performance.
Feature Wafer Cleaning: Noncontact megasonics for post-Cu CMP cleaning
Post-copper-CMP cleaning presents challenges in addition to slurry removal. It is necessary to remove Cu contamination from some areas of the wafer (front-side dielectric, edge, and backside) while avoiding or limiting Cu removal from other areas (the Cu lines).
Lithography Chromeless phase-shift masks used for sub-100nm SOI CMOS transistors
The application of chromeless phase-shift masks to sub-100nm gate length SOI transistor fabrication has achieved considerably enhanced resolution performance compared with alternating aperture while still preserving good process latitudes.
Lithography Progress for characterization and Advanced reticle repair
The combined attributes of focused ion beam reticle repair and the quantitative application of atomic force microscopy, the latter implemented as SNP, provide a complete solution for advanced reticle repair and characterization.
Lithography Excimer lasers for future lithography light sources
o sustain optical lithography for the next five years, the industry must systematically address the technical challenges that will be encountered in developing and using the progression of excimer laser light sources needed, specifically KrF, ArF, and F2 lasers.
Lithography Space charge effects in e-beam projection lithography
Coping with space charge effects is perhaps the major challenge for designers of high-throughput charged-particle projection-lithography systems. Coulomb interactions produce beam blur that depends on the beam current, linking the resolution and the throughput. The strength of that relationship is controlled by other system parameters. Understanding how the blur depends on the system parameters is essential for designing and optimizing the system for maximum throughput at a given resolution.
Software TCAD physical verification for reticle enhancement techniques
The industry's accelerating use of reticle enhancement technologiesoptical proximity correction and phase shift maskinghas brought along with it a need for automatic verification of photomask images, which are no longer exact replicas of the circuit design layout.
Software The semiconductor industry's Semi standard GUI
The new Semi Standard E95-0200 specifies a unified user interface GUI for the semiconductor industry. A straightforward, intuitive screen layout displays information in an efficient and comfortable manner to enable operators to navigate critical function controls accurately and rapidly. Such an industry standard simplifies software development and equipment operation and reduces production errors in the fab.
Vacuum Technology Modified pump, trap system cuts down PECVD maintenance
PECVD deposition of oxy-nitride films is well-known as a source of large quantities of fine particulate by-product that can cause maintenance issues for vacuum pumps and downstream exhaust gas treatment devices.
Etch An integrated etch approach as STI evolves for the 100nm regime
As shallow trench isolation progresses toward the 100nm regime, numerous technical and manufacturing problems need to be resolved. The work presented here examines the current process parameter envelope, identifies problem areas, and develops an integration scheme that reduces process complexity and cost.
Metrology Test Process development and monitoring with atomic force profiling for CMP
CMP processes are being used in an increasing number of applications in the wafer fab in response to shrinking device geometries with their increased need for planarity.
The Effect Of Sub 01micr The effect of sub-0.1µm filtration on 248nm photoresist performance
The implementation of resist filtration below 0.1?m within existing dispense systems raises concern as the removal rating of the filter approaches the size of large molecular weight components of the photoresist.
Thermal Processing Processing for advanced devices with hot-wall furnace RTP
A new single wafer hot-wall isothermal furnace RTP system incorporates many benefits of large batch furnaces while satisfying throughput and thermal budget constraints motivating an industry migration towards single wafer processing. The system is capable of producing wet and dry oxides, with and without chlorine.
Thermal Processing Thermal processing in a single wafer rapid thermal furnace
The design concept and hardware configuration of a single wafer, RTF system, plus temperature measurement/control methods and thermal characteristics are described.
Thermal Processing In situ steam generation: A new rapid thermal oxidation technique
In situ steam generation is a new oxidation technology for single-wafer RTP. Its process parameters can be controlled very precisely, and it provides productivity benefits compared to dry oxidation and torch-based wet oxidation.
Thermal Processing Analysis improves thermal control of heated chucks for IC processing
Temperature control is a critical factor in most chemical and physical reactions. A well-designed heating source for a wafer chuck will improve the system's temperature uniformity and stability. Detailed thermal analysis is a key part of the design process. A design and analysis approach for heated chucks is presented here.
Test Metrology Correlation of FT-IR epitaxial thickness measurement
From an array of commercially available methods for measuring the thickness of epitaxial layers, including referee methods, a robust comparison has revealed that FT-IR spectroscopic analysis results in the most accurate measurements for the 0.3-25mm range.
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