Applied Materials Announces Advanced Direct Polish STI CMP Solution for Nanometer Applications
Production Capability with Ceria High Selectivity Slurry for All Devices at 130nm and Beyond
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 2001-- Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT - news) today announced a breakthrough production-ready direct polish STI (shallow trench isolation) CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) technology for its industry-leading Mirra Mesa(TM) system. The Mirra Mesa system offers a new ceria high selectivity slurry (HSS) solution that provides leading planarity performance across a wide range of pattern densities at 130nm and beyond with advanced process repeatability and high throughput.
``Current direct polish STI techniques using conventional consumables have limited extendibility for future device generations,'' said Chris Smith, general manager of Applied Materials' CMP Product Business Group. ``Our production-ready ceria HSS solution is unique because it offers a large process window for polishing a wide variety of device types, greater than 35 percent higher throughput and low defect levels. This HSS capability can be retrofitted to the more than 1,000 Mirra and Mirra Mesa systems in the field to extend their direct polish capabilities for future device generations.''
Designed for advanced STI CMP process requirements, the Mirra Mesa system with HSS uses a new mix-in-place slurry system (MIPSS) for real-time, accurate ceria HSS mixing and dispensing. Correct slurry mixing and delivery are key to successful volume manufacturing since deviations of just a few percent in mixing can degrade planarity performance as well as process repeatability and reliability. The Mirra Mesa system with HSS also delivers unmatched ceria HSS cost of consumables performance.
``To provide enabling CMP technology that continues to meet the diverse performance demands for STI, we are developing a family of direct polish STI products, with the Mirra Mesa featuring HSS as the first solution. The next step in our family of STI CMP solutions addresses the critical future requirements for sub-100nm devices on 300mm wafers. Our fixed-abrasive web technology is in advanced development with multiple customers in the U.S., Taiwan and Europe,'' noted Smith.
The market for STI CMP technology is expected to grow from $93 million in 2001 to $231 million by 2006, according to Dataquest. The total market for CMP, estimated to be $1.2 billion in 2001, is forecast to reach $2.6 billion by 2006.
Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT - news), the largest supplier of products and services to the global semiconductor industry, is one of the world's leading information infrastructure providers. Applied Materials enables Information for Everyone(TM) by helping semiconductor manufacturers produce more powerful, portable and affordable chips. Applied Materials' Web site is appliedmaterials.com.
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