Issue

Microdisplays are the tiniest of the flat panel displays - typically under around 2 in. diagonal. Today, they are used in multimedia front projectors, virtual display headsets for wearable computers and immersive simulations, and in viewfinders for camcorders. The number of products could expand dramatically in the next few years, powered by a host of new microdisplay technologies.

Declaring that "the future starts in 2001," Siemens VP of world DRAM manufacturing outlined a tentative roadmap for 300-mm production that would call for a volume production facility to be ready for equipment by mid-2001, and for all of the company's DRAM production to be on 300-mm wafers before 2004.

Discussions at ISS Japan '99, recently held in Narita, Japan, revealed an aggressive new technology roadmap from Fujitsu, a number of DRAM developments, and an update on the activities of the Japan roadmapping group.

ULSI chip production is a very risky affair. Risk comes from trying to control extremely complex processes in a high-volume manufacturing environment. Roadmaps are developed to determine the least risky paths to follow, but the terrain may be starting to shift faster than we can generate accurate maps to extrapolate the Moore's Law trendline.

SEMI book-to-bill above unity again. Shipments from North American semiconductor equipment companies ticked down slightly month-to-month in February to $820 million from $865 million, but new orders remained nearly flat at $963 million (see table). As a result, Semi's monthly book-to-bill ratio was 1.17, above 1.0 for the second straight month. The report indicates that equipment makers are seeing better business conditions, as monthly orders have now been above $960 million for two stra

Novellus drops parylene, bets on SiOC low-k As a testament to the difficulties in simultaneously meeting technical and business specs for important new processes, Novellus has canceled its parylene low-k dielectric deposition program. Wilbert van den Hoek, Novellus Group VP of dielectrics, stated that the film met all technical specs and worked well in customer demos but required an integration sequence substantially more expensive than competing technologies. A family of competitively priced C

Low-k dielectric materials and processes for ULSI interconnection were sorted to create generic Cu dual-damascene process flows. Average material and equipment costs were then used as inputs to a generic cost-per-wafer (CPW) model for

Grazing-incidence x-ray reflectivity shows potential for in situ deposition and etch process monitoring and control, as well as operator visualization of the film growth process

Gordon Moore predicted some 30 years ago that the number of transistors on an IC would double every 18 months. Remarkably, the industry is still on this course. To keep the law in effect, semiconductor companies have made impressive productivity gains in just about every part of chipmaking

Most semiconductor processes employ gases that induce chemical reactions with the semiconductor wafer to deposit or etch material, or that clean the processing chamber. Knowledge of the gas composition within the processing chamber or in the exhaust can provide important information about what is occurring during a processing or cleaning step. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) has been

Micrascan 193 is a production-worthy 193-nm step-and-scan lithography system that is specified at 130nm for grouped features, with a 0.6µm depth of focus. It achieves system overlay performance of 45nm and has a large field size. The 193 addresses the challenges of the 150nm node and beyond with conventional binary reticles, allowing greater depth of focus and process latitude than current higher 248 NA systems. Silicon Valley Group Inc., San Jose, CA; ph 408/467-5949, fax 408/467-5867, e-