Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: RTEC) today announced the receipt of over $12M in new orders for its recently-released NovusEdge™ system for edge and backside inspection on bare silicon wafers. The new orders are for capacity expansions at our existing customers as well as orders from two additional large wafer manufacturers based in Asia. These orders are in addition to the $3M previously announced and will ship throughout calendar year 2019.

“With these orders Rudolph has expanded its customer base to include the top wafer suppliers with over 75 percent of the bare wafer market share,” said Mike Plisinski, Rudolph Technologies’ CEO. “We believe the early acceptance of these new systems is being driven by the accelerating demand for high-quality bare silicon wafers for sub 20nm nodes. To meet that demand, customers require an inspection solution with increased sensitivity on the wafer edge and backside. The Rudolph team worked closely with bare wafer manufacturers in order to introduce a new product with compelling capabilities and value of ownership. As the rate of die shrinks slows at the advanced nodes, more wafers are required to make enough die to meet growing market demand, especially for advanced memory and logic chips.”

Chips and micro-fractures at the edge readily propagate as cracks into active areas of the wafer, especially when the wafer is thinned. Backside contamination can distort the frontside of the wafer during lithography, consuming focus budgets that are already thin and will become even thinner with the adoption of EUV lithography.

Edge and backside inspection have requirements that are very different from conventional frontside inspection. The NovusEdge EBI (Edge, Backside Inspection) system’s image-based approach provides full coverage of near-edge, bevel and apex regions, both top and bottom. Compared to existing technology, it is faster, more sensitive and better at classifying types of defects, especially for the complex shapes and curvatures at the notch. Backside inspection can use the same light scattering techniques used on the frontside but requires special handling capabilities to avoid contacting or contaminating the frontside. In all cases, sophisticated software provides analysis and automatic defect classification.

Microtronic, Inc., a maker of high-speed full-wafer semiconductor macro defect inspection systems, wants to shed new light on a topic that is frequently misunderstood in the industry: macro vs. micro inspection. The company is releasing a new series of free informational tech bulletins entitled Macro Intelligence, addressing the often-underutilized capabilities of macro defect wafer inspection and how fabs can best use them to improve their total wafer defect management. Anyone may request to receive the new bulletins.

“In today’s fabs we still see confusion about the relative roles of macro and micro wafer inspection,” said Reiner Fenske, Microtronic’s CEO. “Many people still think that macro and micro are basically trying to do the same job, when actually they’re doing two very differentjobs — each very important and each complementary to the other.”

“Here’s the fundamental challenge,” said Fenske. “As critical dimensions and killer defects get smaller, micro inspection requires ever increasing magnification and resolution — and longer inspection times. Which is why micro inspections are usually limited to just a small part of the semiconductor wafer and on a small sampling of wafers, perhaps only one or two from a lot. Unfortunately, that leaves a great deal of wafer real estate uninspected!”

“And that’s the big void that automated macro wafer inspection can fill,” said Errol Akomer, Applications Director at Microtronic. “Today’s generation of ultra high-speed semiconductor macro defect wafer inspection systems, such as our EagleView, can now capture full-wafer, high-resolution images of every wafer in the lot within a few minutes, without needing recipes. So fabs can now do 100% macro defect wafer inspections after many more process steps, to catch defects that otherwise would have been missed — random defects, intermittent process or tool issues and a great deal more.”

Akomer noted that automated macro inspection not only detects more defects, it also recordswafer images and defect information in a database that can be reviewed long after the wafers have shipped. This database can supply extremely valuable information to each subsequent processing step and inspection, and it provides a way to find root causes of infrequent issues and excursions. And, importantly, it can also integrate defect data from manual microscopic as well as automated micro inspections — to become an extremely valuable resource for end-of-line inspection. This can significantly improve the quality and completeness of final inspections and reduce the number of hidden defects that escape into the field.

The first of the new Macro Intelligence e-bulletins dealt with the issue of “disappearing” latent defects that can get covered over by subsequent processing steps and become difficult to detect at later inspections. The second bulletin discussed the problem of partially compromised die that can slip through final electrical testing and become reliability problems in the field.

“Bottom line, these new e-mail tech bulletins aim to provide useful information,” said Akomer. “They’re about helping fabs to optimize their defect inspection protocols and improve yields. Each e-bulletin is intentionally brief, to the point, and a quick read. So far, people are telling us they like them!”

Lam Research Corporation (Nasdaq: LRCX) today announced that the Board of Directors has accepted Martin Anstice’s resignation as chief executive officer and a member of the Board and has named Tim Archer president and chief executive officer (CEO) effective immediately. Mr. Archer has also been appointed to the Board of Directors of Lam Research. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Archer was the company’s president and chief operating officer (COO).

Mr. Anstice resigned as the company investigates allegations of misconduct in the workplace and conduct inconsistent with the company’s core values, including allegations about Mr. Anstice. The alleged conduct did not involve financial misconduct, nor did it relate to questions regarding the integrity of the company’s financial systems or controls. Upon learning of the allegations, the Board of Directors formed a committee of independent directors led by Lead Independent Director Abhi Talwalkar to conduct an investigation of the allegations, which is ongoing. The independent directors retained an external law firm to assist with the investigation. Mr. Anstice will be leaving the company without receiving any severance benefits.

Mr. Archer was appointed president and COO of Lam Research in January 2018, after serving as COO since June 2012 when Lam completed its acquisition of Novellus Systems, Inc. He joined Novellus in 1994 and held numerous positions throughout his tenure there, including serving as COO at the time of the acquisition by Lam Research.

“The board believes strongly in Lam’s vision and strategy. With Martin’s resignation, we are implementing our existing succession plan in which Tim was designated to succeed Martin. We are confident that Tim is the right leader to execute on the company’s strategic agenda and drive success in the coming years,” said Mr. Talwalkar. “Since joining us over six years ago with the acquisition of Novellus, Tim has been instrumental in leading Lam Research through a period of transformational growth, and we are confident our company and stakeholders will continue to prosper under Tim’s leadership.”

Mr. Archer commented, “I am honored to lead Lam Research at a time of great opportunity for our company. Lam has industry-leading technologies and is well-positioned to capitalize on the multiple demand drivers for the semiconductor industry. We are committed to our long-term strategy of value creation for our customers, employees, business partners, and stockholders.”

Mr. Talwalkar added, “Lam Research takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. An integral part of the culture of Lam Research is our commitment to provide a safe and positive work environment where each of our employees has the opportunity to thrive. The company has policies in place to support and enforce this commitment.”

Lam Research also reaffirms its financial guidance for the December 2018 quarter, as communicated in the press release dated October 16, 2018. An update to our financial performance and business outlook will be provided at our customary quarterly earnings call on January 23, 2019.