Issue

The semiconductor industry is the most remarkable in the history of modern mankind. The exponential progress represented by following Moore's Law — doubling the number of devices per chip area every 18 months, with the dramatic cost/performance improvements this entails — has opened vast new application areas.

Chip sales down for July; N.A. tool orders up third month in a row - Worldwide semiconductor sales continued to slide in July, dropping to $10.86 billion from June's $11.6 billion, according to the latest report from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

OLED displays gain on LCDs - An organic light emitting diode (OLED, Fig. 1) display technology has been developed that exhibits up to 16 million colors. Based on Kodak patents, the full-color active matrix OLED developed by eMagin Corp., Hopewell Junction, NY, contains more than 1.5 million individually addressable picture elements.

IMEC, based in Leuven, Belgium, is Europe's leading independent microelectronics and ICT R&D center. It has been very active recently, with a spate of studies and joint programs. Here we outline some of the most interesting developments.

Japanese manufacturing looks like it may be making a comeback in world leadership. After the high-flying 1980s, Japan's competitiveness plunged to where people were questioning if it still made sense to produce semiconductors in Japan at all. Now, Japanese plants are aggressively benchmarking competition and are no longer behind the rest of the world.

The combined forces of recession and technological upheaval have created confusion in the semiconductor industry this year, but the dust is settling over the issue of low-k dielectrics at the 130nm design node. The two early winners are CVD organosilicons and spin-on organics.

A listing of industry events, covering October to December 2001.

300mm wafer marking from GSI Lumonics Inc.; Multisensor e-diagnostics from INFICON; Dual-stage ArF litho system from ASML; 300mm wafer surface preparation from SEZ AG...

Customized gas-handling systems brochure; Quick couplings and fittings catalog; Cleanroom accessories catalog; Process filtration guide.

Once largely a function of critical area, yield loss is increasingly dependent on critical features such as contacts and vias. Characterizing this type of yield loss is a challenge, due to the extremely small failure rates required to achieve a high yielding product. There is, however, a comprehensive new method for modeling all dominant yield loss mechanisms that uses integrated test chips and a new paradigm based on precise modeling of individual yield loss mechanisms.

Built-in particle inspection is not likely to provide benefit over a comprehensive standalone inspection approach that is facilitated by 300mm fab automation and robotics. Among other justifications, significant time-to-detect benefits may be achievable through optimized automation and robotics support and fab layout without the loss of flexibility.

Within the past year, the extension of optical lithography to 157nm has received widespread support because it offers the prospect of improved resolution based on decades of optical lithography experience. This article provides an update on the progress in 157nm, from photoresists to pellicles and exposure tools.

Collaborative work among several European fabs is proving the value of advanced process control, using SEERS data, for identifying arcing, indicating possible particle excursions, and identifying and verifying possible plasma process improvements.

As device scaling continues, precise control of dopant placement becomes a critical requisite in the fabrication of high-performance devices. Here we compare the performance of single-wafer parallel-beam implanters to traditional batch implanters, with spinning disks, looking at beam incident angle control.

Drawing on traditional front-end processing, wet chemical etching of under-bump metallurgy in the presence of solder bumps can now be successfully applied in back-end wafer level packaging applications. These methods resolve a unique set of problems and control issues.

Maintenance of aluminum etch systems can be reduced and uptime significantly increased by keeping exhaust byproducts in a vapor phase and then trapping them upstream of the vacuum pump, thus preventing chemical reactions at the scrubber.

A process that eliminates nearly all the limitations of conventional CMP has been developed. The new technique, called ultra stress-free polishing (Ultra SFP), allows a prompt process migration to low-k dielectric materials (where k < 2.2).

00mm wafer processing brings with it a proportionate increase in specialty gas consumption with associated handling concerns. For many of these situations, a bulk specialty gas system will help meet the demands associated with the higher volume and flow requirements of 300mm fabs.

There has been growing concern over the so-called million-dollar mask set. While the cost of producing advanced photomasks continues to increase, they remain the lowest-cost approach to staying on pace with Moore's Law.

Exhibit dates & hours:
Tuesday, October 16, 10 am-6 pm
Wednesday, October 17, 10 am-5 pm

SOI wafers from SOITEC/USA, Peabody, MA; Dual-arm robo from Adept Technology Inc., San Jose, CA; Heat exchanger system from Bay Voltex Corp., Livermore, CA; Programmable power controller from Innovative Solutions, Minford, OH...

There is no doubt that the southwestern US is a favored location for semiconductor manufacturers. A quick review shows that five of the top 10 semiconductor manufacturers worldwide have wafer fabrication facilities in the region (see table): Intel, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Samsung, and Motorola.

It is not surprising that the famous Texas braggadocio carries over into the semiconductor manufacturing industry. After all, it was in Texas on May 10, 1954, that Texas Instruments (TI) announced the commercial availability of grown-junction silicon transistors, at the time a less expensive and higher-operating-temperature alternative to germanium transistors [2].

With only one active wafer facility, Utah certainly cannot be considered a semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse. The state ranks 21st nationally based on employment. The fab is Fairchild Semiconductor's facility in West Jordan, two lines processing 150mm wafers with an estimated maximum capacity of 35,000 wafers/month.

The sunny desert sands of Arizona have attracted silicon-based industries since the inception of the transistor. In 1949, Motorola set up a small, solid state research laboratory in Phoenix to investigate the new field of solid state technology.

You are correct if you don't think of New Mexico for its manufacturing industries. In the greater Albuquerque area, the state's biggest concentration of population, the manufacturing sector accounts for only 9% of total nonagricultural employment.

Solid State Technology's tabulation of Colorado fabs (Table 1) shows that there are six semiconductor manufacturers with eight wafer fabs in the state (some are being closed). These range from bipolar discrete device manufacturing to an advanced flash memory fab (Intel).