Issue

Recently there was a meeting held by Silicon Valley companies about steps being taken to protect facilities that might be vulnerable to attack by terrorists.

Some good news on the global front for September: Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) posted a book-to-bill ratio that was up slightly from August and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) saw positive signs in its report of worldwide chip sales.

A new technology dubbed "resistive quartz" shows promise of providing advantages over conventional methods of heating fluids used in wafer processing without contaminating them. In addition, this technology is better able to handle changing process flow demands reliably.

Meeting in Monterey, CA, more than 400 maskmakers discussed new technology, cost factors, and potential future problems at the 21st annual BACUS Symposium on Photomask Technology. A record number of papers were submitted, while the number of exhibitors stayed steady with last year.

Belgium's independent R&D center IMEC, located in Leuven, has begun research to develop technology that will give the industry integrated wafer level packaging on copper low-k IC interconnect, to be performed in wafer processing's back end of the line (BEOL).

Topping the list of characteristics in demand for electronic displays are portability, brightness, low power, high resolution, and wireless connectivity. To address these demands, the industry has increasingly focused R&D and production efforts on maximizing the capabilities of microdisplay technology.

Yield-acceleration technology; Electron-beam maskwriting system; Material control system; Dry and wet clean processes...

A listing of industry events, covering December 2001 through April 2002.

An effective method for removing photoresist and post-etch polymers at the transistor gate level, while removing less oxide than more traditional HF wet cleans, has been developed.

Tests have shown that a standard 5000-gallon liquid helium supply tank and system can deliver consistent <1 ppb impurity levels without additional purification. This is an effective means of switching from low-volume cylinder supply to larger bulk supply to support the growing application of helium in semiconductor and optical fiber processing.

Modeling work has investigated controllable parameters — such as lot release, heuristic scheduling, machine uptime, etc. — that determine cycle time and throughput in a complex semiconductor manufacturing backend.

Fab managers need to worry less about wafer automation or tool-to-factory integration, and concentrate more on manufacturing, scheduling, line balance, and order fulfillment.