Alliances
The project will be co-ordinated by the lead partner, Taylor Hobson, who will provide its Talysurf CCI non-contact measurement solutions for the demanding applications carried out by companies such as epitaxial wafer foundry IQE and magnetron optical coating tool specialist Applied Multilayers. The Talysurf CCI technology will allow the establishment of international standards for nano-surface roughness.
Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing foundry has achieved functional 0.13micron 300mm wafers from its Fab 7, demonstrating silicon results which exceeded internal targets within five months of the first equipment installation. Additionally, Chartered has launched engineering 300mm wafers at Fab 7 for its 0.11micron process, as well for the 90nm platform it is jointly developing with IBM. For 200mm and 300mm manufacturing, Chartered is already engaging with customers on its 0.13micron and 0.11micron solutions, as well as on the 90nm cross-foundry platform that will be available at both Chartered's Fab 7 and IBM's East Fishkill fab in New York state. Chartered's 0.11micron process is achieved with a 10% shrink of Chartered's 0.13micron design rule, reducing implementation risks while lowering the cost per die. Chartered's 0.11micron solutions are targeted for products such as graphic chips, optical drives and high-speed SRAMs. Teams from Chartered and IBM are working together to qualify the equipment set at Fab 7 and to align the equipment configuration and process flow with those at IBM's facility to enable the industry's first dual-source 90nm platform. Following the launch of 90nm engineering wafers, Fab 7 remains on schedule to manufacture 90nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) products for IBM in mid-2005, with Chartered becoming the only dedicated foundry to have advanced SOI capabilities.
The European Commission wants to start negotiations at the end of September on a co-operation agreement with Ukraine on the development of a civil Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based on the European Union-led GALILEO development. European Council of Ministers approval has been sought for the move. A Ukraine-EU joint statement on satellite navigation was previously adopted in October 2003. The scenario identified in preliminary talks includes multilateral and industrial co-operation, research and scientific activities especially on standardisation issues, regional integrity monitoring and financial investment in GALILEO. Ukraine is one of the eight countries within the world space community demonstrating significant technological background on space programmes and important achievements on GNSS applications, equipment, use and regional technology. Among the Ukrainian space industry's achievements have been the design and production of launchers and GNSS components. GALILEO agreements have already been signed with China and Israel and discussions are under way with India, Russia, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Australia. An EU/US agreement confirmed the full interoperability and compatibility between GALILEO and the US GPS system. The EU expects 3bn receivers and revenues of some EUR250bn per year by 2010 world wide, and the creation of more than 150,000 highly qualified jobs in Europe alone. GALILEO stresses its civilian nature, unlike the military GPS and GLONASS (Russia) systems.
KLA-Tencor and Seiko Instruments subsidiary SII NanoTechnology (SIINT) have formed a partnership to distribute SIINT's Nanopics 2100 high-speed, high-resolution atomic force profilometer to markets outside of Japan. KLA-Tencor will sell the Nanopics 2100 as a joint product in North America and Europe. The Nanopics 2100 is a compact tabletop system that combines the high resolution of an atomic force microscope (AFM) with the ease of use and speed of a surface profiler to enable non-destructive, absolute measurements of surface roughness, step height and surface contour. The device has an 800micron XY range and a 20micron Z range. Applications include data storage, semiconductor and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), as well as polymer science, optics, biotechnology and general industrial research. Israeli metrology tool developer Tevet Process Control Technologies has received an approved supplier designation from Novellus.
The recognition comes after a collaborative evaluation of Tevet's In-situ Thickness Measurement System (IsTMS) by both Novellus Systems and by a Novellus customer. Following evaluation and testing by Novellus, the IsTMS has become a tool of record in a production fab. The IsTMS uses large spot size broad band spectral reflectometry combined with proprietary algorithms to provide in-situ metrology.
Toshiba, NEC Electronics and Fujitsu have agreed on standard interface specifications for pseudo static random access memory (PSRAM) with burst mode. Based on the specifications, known as COSMORAM (Common Specifications for Mobile RAM) Rev. 3, each of the three companies will independently begin production and sales of PSRAM devices, with products scheduled to be available from each company starting March 2005. The three companies promulgated common specifications in 1998 for stacked multi-chip packages (MCPs), which include both Flash memory and SRAM with common interface specifications for page mode PSRAM and stacked MCPs announced in 2002, and for burst mode PSRAM and stacked MCPs in February 2003.
Pall and Matheson Tri-Gas have entered into a strategic alliance to jointly develop, manufacture and sell gas purifiers to the semiconductor industry.
Both companies will have exclusive access to the others' purification media to improve semiconductor manufacturing, by eliminating particulate and molecular contaminants, including oxygen, moisture and hydrocarbons, from process gases. The two companies have been working together since 1997, when Pall began distributing Matheson's NANOCHEM point-of-use gas purification systems. Pall Microelectronics began developing its own purification technology for the semiconductor market in 1998.
Lucent Technologies has been selected by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an advanced microsystem for maskless lithography. The four-year, $9.5mn contract comes from the US Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in California.
The aim is to make the design and fabrication of next-generation advanced silicon integrated circuits faster, more economical and with increased security for military applications. These include transformational communications (aimed at converting the US Department of Defense wideband and protected communications satellite architecture into a single network comprised of multiple satellite, ground and user segment components) and the US "homeland security" market.
Lucent will design, develop and demonstrate micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS)-based Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs) that will enable maskless optical lithography. In low-volume situations, mask fabrication can become a significant manufacturing cost. Maskless lithography process using MEMS-based SLMs allows manufactures to build circuits without the expense of individual masks. The Bell Labs-developed MEMS SLM technology is made possible by advanced nanofabrication. The Lucent SLMs will contain 10x more individual movable micromirrors (pixels) than currently available.
Individual pixels will be 5x smaller and 10x faster. Feature sizes as small as 50nm will be possible at high throughput. Lucent's MEMS SLM containing 100-200nm features. The lower demagnification required for the smaller mirrors allows for a larger image area with the same optical element sizes and projector numerical aperture. This enables throughput that is 10-50x faster than using other current maskless lithography processes.
"One of the most critical barriers in the areas of maskless lithography is the development and implementation of the appropriate beam modulation technology," says Dave Bishop, vice president of nanotechnology research and president, NJ Nanotech Consortium at Bell Labs. The Lucent team includes Corning Tropel, DuPont Photo Masks and Lincoln Laboratories. The work is performed in close partnership with ASML.
