Immersion picks up steam

The transition to immersion lithography (IML) has gathered momentum with several announcements of new alliances and products. International Sematech has created the 193-nm immersion Technology Center (iTC) as part of its newly established Advanced Materials Research Center. The Austin, TX–based consortium says the new center will support the development of photoresists, fluids, and other components for high-numerical-aperture (NA) 193-nm IML technology. Staffed by Sematech technologists who will work with a wide range of customers, the iTC will have a total estimated budget of $15 million.

In related news, Sematech and Exitech will develop the first ultra-high-NA 193-nm immersion microexposure tool, the MS-193i. The system, which will incorporate a catadioptric lens from Corning Tropel and an ArF laser source from Lambda Physik, will be installed at the consortium in 3Q 2005. The upgradable platform will be used to test resist performance at production-level feature sizes as well as to perform research on how polarization, illumination geometries, reticle architectures, and fluid defect printability affect imaging in resists with hyper-NA immersion lenses.

Tokyo Electron will provide IMEC with a Clean Track ACT 12 coater/ developer system for 193-nm IML work. The tool, scheduled for installation this summer in the Belgian research center's new 300-mm facility, will be used to fine-tune resist processing to meet the goals set in The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors for CD control and defect reduction. TEL also said in July that it had begun taking orders for its next-generation resist coater/developer for immersion applications, the Clean Track Lithius i.

Three other companies have introduced new IML-related products. AZ Electronic Materials has released a protective layer chemistry for sampling, the AZ EXP TARP coating 11, which can be applied as a barrier between the resist and the water immersion medium. The company says the coating will help prevent resist components from leaching into the medium and contaminating the exposure tool lens. Asahi Glass has developed a synthetic photomask substrate that meets IML requirements and can be mass-produced economically. Called QC-1, the company claims the new material has a birefringence of 1 nm or less, compared with the 4–5 nm range shown in conventional synthetic quartz substrates used in argon-fluoride (ArF) lithography. On the light source front, Cymer has come out with a 193-nm ArF excimer light source designed to support 45-nm IML applications. The XLA 200 features high output power and narrow bandwidth, which helps enable exposure of critical features by scanners using hyper-NA lenses, as well as enhanced onboard metrology.

M&A activity continues

Several semiconductor and equipment suppliers have been busy in the merger, acquisition, and investment arena. Aixtron and Genus, leading manufacturers of metal-organic CVD and atomic-layer deposition process equipment, respectively, have agreed to a merger in a stock-for-stock transaction. The boards of both companies have already approved the deal (which should be finalized by year's end), although it is still subject to approval by each firms' shareholders and to any U.S. regulatory clearance. "The combined company will leverage Aixtron's know-how in complex materials deposition and Genus's strength in new semiconductor deposition technologies for such materials," says Paul Hyland, president and CEO of Aixtron.

Mattson signed a definitive agreement to buy Vancouver, BC–based Vortek Industries, a privately held developer of millisecond flash annealing technology. The acquisition adds the Canadian company's Flashfire rapid-thermal processing system, with its proprietary temperature control and arc-lamp technology, to the parent firm's product line. "The synergies from our combined advanced ultrashallow junction development programs should enhance our ability to accelerate the development and delivery of advanced flash RTP," notes Mattson president and CEO David Dutton. The company also announced it had beat out other suppliers for the 300-mm advanced RTP business at a top 10 chipmaker's logic fab in northern Japan.

ATMI has sold off two more units in its ongoing strategy of shedding noncore operations. International Rectifier bought the materials company's Mesa, AZ–based specialty silicon epitaxial services division in a cash deal. Materials Support Resources (Delaware) purchased ATMI's fab parts cleaning services business, Fab Services, which has operations in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oregon, and Ireland. Larry Kenney, president of Materials Support Resources, says his company now can "support the entire maintenance network from repair, spare-parts management, parts cleaning, refurbishment, and value-added engineering to reduce the customer's total cost of ownership."

Two up-and-coming suppliers also scored investment monies in recent transactions. Cabot Microelectronics poured $3.75 million in equity funding into its partner NanoProducts Corp., a Longmont, CO–based developer of nanoscale particles and powders. The move was part of a new three-year agreement in which NanoProducts will work exclusively with Cabot in the development of nanomaterials for fine-finish polishing applications, including CMP slurries. In another transaction, Synopsys established itself as the largest individual investor in HPL Technologies. The semiconductor design software giant acquired 19.9% of the yield optimization solutions company's outstanding shares.

Samsung expands Austin fab

Korean chaebol Samsung Electronics has broken ground on the second stage of its Austin, TX, facility expansion and upgrade. The company plans to invest $500 million and add 300 jobs over the next three years at its only non-Korean fab. The 34,000-sq-ft addition will begin with construction of the outer shell and the cleanroom, followed by equipment installation in July 2005. The Samsung Austin Semiconductor facility makes 16-, 64-, and 256-Mb chips using 130-nm technology; with the upgrade, the Texas plant will be able to manufacture devices with 100- and 80-nm geometries at a fully ramped capacity of 50,000 wafers per month.

Siltronic opens 300-mm plant

Silicon wafer manufacturer Siltronic has opened a new 300-mm facility in Freiberg, Germany. The factory was built in 18 months for an estimated cost of 430 million euros, a price tag the wafermaker says is the largest single investment project in the history of its parent company, Wacker-Chemie. The wafermaking plant, located near Dresden in the state of Saxony, will employ some 600 people.

The Freiberg facility's capacity will add to the roughly 75,000 wafers per month produced by Siltronic's 300-mm line in Burghausen. Volker Braetsch, vp of strategic planning and communication, spoke with MICRO at Semicon West. He said that the company expects to manufacture 40,000 wafers per month on the Freiberg line by the end of 2004, with eventual annual capacity pegged at 150,000 wafers. "We have pulled in the second phase and are ramping continuously," he noted. "We could sell more if we had the capacity." Siltronic will announce plans for a third 300-mm plant soon, a facility that Braetsch said will likely be built in Asia or the United States.

Micron to fab NAND

In an effort to meet the growing demand for high-performance, low-cost flash chips for memory cards, USB devices, and other mass-storage mobile and industrial applications, Micron has started production of NAND chips. The company's first NAND product, a 2-Gb chip, will come out by the end of 2004. "Micron is entering the NAND market aggressively, starting with the introduction of our first device on 90 nm followed by process migrations to 72 nm and then 58 nm," says Jan du Preez, the chipmaker's vp of networking and communication. "Our NAND roadmap reflects multiple configurations and density migrations up to 16 Gb. We anticipate ramping production quickly to meet the forecast market demand." The company says it expects the global NAND market to reach $10 billion by 2008.

BOC, IMEC get supercritical

BOC Edwards and IMEC have established a joint development program focused on the application of supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂) cleaning processes for sub-45-nm semiconductor devices. BOC has shipped an integrated scCO₂ processing system—including its DFP 200 high-pressure, single-wafer module—to IMEC as part of the three-year process development program. The joint effort's first investigation will look at the use of scCO₂ for the cleaning of advanced porous low-k materials. The partners say they will develop process baselines and seek to understand scCO₂'s range of enabling applications. The material's low viscosity and surface tension, which permits efficient cleaning of small feature sizes, makes it a promising technology for future semiconductor devices.