News Article
Rudolph Enters New Market for Metrology in Back-End Packaging
Rudolph Technologies, Inc., a provider of process characterization equipment and software for the semiconductor, LED and solar industries, has announced that it has delivered the first MetaPULSE metrology system for measurements of under bump metallization (UBM) and redistribution layers (RDL) used in advanced packaging technologies in the back-end of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process.
The MetaPULSE system is known for accurate measurements of metal interconnect and other opaque materials in front-end wafer processing applications. Entry into back-end packaging opens a new application space for the MetaPULSE system with significant market potential. The first MetaPULSE tool for use in the back-end was shipped in Q4 2011 and has been installed at the customer's site.
"We are taking a well-established technology into a new market"•advanced packaging is a rapidly-growing area of IC manufacturing, and represents a significant market opportunity for advanced metrology systems," stated Tim Kryman, Rudolph's director of product management for metrology.
"This development is the culmination of an evaluation program we began well over a year ago," adds Kryman. "Rudolph collaborated with a major IC manufacturer that anticipated the need for on-product metrology as decreasing feature sizes and increasing pattern densities introduced pattern-dependent deposition effects in their plating process. That collaboration was a success, and we are currently engaged with a number of other logic, memory and foundry customers to expand into additional critical back-end applications."
