Issue

There is a lot of talk these days about building lights-out semiconductor factories with total factory-wide control of scheduling and processing. Fab operators would be there only to monitor operations and perform maintenance. All process recipes would be automatically adjusted based on feedback and feedforward signals from built-in sensors and metrology.

The unique properties of atomic-layer deposition (ALD) films have captured considerable interest from IC manufacturers facing challenging manufacturing needs.

While many challenges of dual damascene copper metallization have been addressed, reliability poses a serious concern, especially as the device node shrinks to 90nm and smaller.

All projections show wafer-level packaging (WLP) to be a leading driver of the semiconductor packaging industry over the next few years, and the current level of activity and recent developments indicate that this is already underway.

Solid State Technology asked industry executives to comment on what's driving the test industry and where it needs to go.

Deep levels in the band gap associated with metallic impurities present in semiconductors strongly affect the lifetime of the minority carriers. For silicon, third transition-metal atoms (e.g., Mo, Fe, Cu, Ni) are inevitably introduced during the wafer processing following the crystal growth step.

High aspect-ratio inspection (HARi) — the detection of defects within structures having depth-to-width ratios >3:1 — is a difficult challenge for the near future. Layout features that require HARi are no longer restricted to contacts and vias; they are also required for deep trenches, stacked polysilicon gates, and metal damascene trenches.

Global markets for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and compound semiconductors have offered great promise to chipmakers for years. Both categories of products face market and processing challenges, and the global economic woes of the past couple of years slowed down research that is needed to move processes forward, especially with MEMS.

The primary functions of a compressed-gas cylinder valve are to contain the gas inside the cylinder (isolation) and to allow controlled release of product to the delivery system. The valve outlet serves as the mechanical seal with the delivery system and is designed to prevent inadvertent connection of incompatible gases.

The move to copper interconnects has forced fabs to abandon subtractive metallization techniques. While PVD provides precise thickness control for aluminum deposition, no such luxury is available with copper metallization.