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Technology Stocks : Plasma and Materials Technologies !!!!
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To: Zeev Hed who wrote (187)10/5/1996 6:42:00 PM
From: Technoman   of 383
 
It appears that Forcefill could easily save that kind of capital cost if you look at it from the customers viewpoint -- cost per wafer over X amount of wafer starts per month.

Now I am not a technologist but here is how I think they probably look at it:

To begin with, 1 Forcefill system replaces the following machines to make a device:
1 Aluminum PVD Machine
1 Tungsten CVD Machine
1 CMP and/or non-critical etcher (for etch back)

Now add the throughput issue. How fast is the old way versus the new way:

Old Way (I am not sure of the order, but I know it involves all of these):
A. Sputter Aluminum with PVD
B. Take it out and check it
C. Deposition of Tungsten with CVD
D. Take it out and check it
E. CMP or etch back the overburden of Tungsten
F. Take it out and check it

Forcefill way:
A. Forcefill system puts Aluminum down
B. Take it out and check it

When I looked into to this I was told that in an ASIC fab, Forcefill could process in 50% of the time as opposed to the old way. It appears that 1 Forcefill system may replace more than its 3-4 system counterpart based on throughput improvements.

I am going to try to find out how many of each of these machines is needed in a next generation logic fab and how much each system averages so we can run the numbers exactly.
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