KLA-Tencor Breaks the Inspection Bottleneck of 300-mm and SUB-100-nm IC Production with AIT Fusion UV
Wednesday April 16, 5:00 pm ET
Dramatic Throughput Improvement and On-Board Data Processing Deliver Fast, Cost-Effective Inspection Solution
SAN JOSE, Calif., April 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Establishing a new standard in defect management, KLA-Tencor (Nasdaq: KLAC - News) today unveiled the AIT Fusion UV -- one the industry's lowest cost-of-ownership (CoO) patterned wafer inspection platforms for sub-100-nm integrated circuit (IC) production. The latest addition to KLA-Tencor's production-proven AIT family of wafer inspection systems, the AIT Fusion UV provides up to four times the throughput compared to KLA-Tencor's previous-generation AIT XP system. Unique inline data processing capabilities speed the resolution of critical yield issues to significantly lower the cost of inspection while accelerating chipmakers' ramp to volume-production yields. Several leading IC manufacturers have already installed the AIT Fusion UV in their advanced 300-mm production fabs.
"Ramping to volume production of 300-mm wafers at 100-nm design rules requires the ability to rapidly and cost-effectively detect, identify and correct subtle yield-impacting process problems," stated Chon Sang-Mun, vice president of Samsung Electronics' Manufacturing Technology Team. "At a time when cost control is more important than ever, our collaboration with KLA-Tencor on the AIT Fusion UV has given us significant operational advantages. The AIT Fusion UV's extremely high throughput and enhanced sensitivity, combined with low training costs, account for its superior ability to resolve yield-limiting defect issues both quickly and cost-effectively. As a result, we have adopted a number of key 300-mm production layers to this tool."
The transition to smaller design rules and copper/low-k interconnects is redefining the role of defect management on the fab production floor. Below the 130-nm node, the ratio of nuisance defects to yield-limiting defects is high, driving the requirement for inspection technology that maximizes the capture of yield-limiting defects, while minimizing the capture of nuisance defects. Equally important is the need for more "intelligent" inspection to quickly filter and sort defects based on their yield relevance. In addition, since advanced processes are relatively immature, random excursions are common. As a result, defect management methodologies must emphasize inspection at high sampling rates and defect tracking by type in order for chip manufacturers to quickly isolate the root cause of defects and improve yield learning and monitoring.
Lowering inspection CoO for advanced 300-mm production
All of these requirements can lead to higher inspection costs. To enable the economic rewards promised by the move to smaller design rules and 300-mm wafers, it is necessary to reduce inspection CoO by maintaining high inspection throughput at high sensitivity. The AIT Fusion UV was developed specifically to address the special inspection and excursion monitoring needs of sub-100-nm processes on 300-mm wafers. Capable of finding critical defects in the most advanced devices, while performing defect classification inline at speeds significantly greater than previous-generation AIT systems, the AIT Fusion UV eliminates a key bottleneck that has, until now, limited the frequency of high-sensitivity line monitoring inspection for 300-mm production.
"We're committed to developing solutions that help our customers accelerate yield and fab profitability," stated Rick Wallace, executive vice president of the Wafer Inspection, Review and Analysis Group at KLA-Tencor. "With leading-edge tools like AIT Fusion UV, our customers don't have to compromise on performance for cost-effectiveness."
UV illumination for superior defect detection
The AIT Fusion UV is the industry's first double-darkfield optical inspection tool to incorporate UV illumination, which increases the amount of light scattered from small defects and enables the tool to achieve the critical sensitivity requirements needed for sub-100-nm design rules. These attributes-combined with the AIT platform's production-proven Adaptive Mode(TM) technology, multiple independent image collectors, and suite of new, advanced detection algorithms-enable the AIT Fusion UV to provide a high capture rate of defects of interest, while dramatically reducing the detection of nuisance and previous-layer defects. The AIT Fusion UV is especially effective in inspecting chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) layers, copper/low-k interconnects, and multi-layer film stacks.
Higher throughput and faster time to results
The AIT Fusion UV's increased sensitivity enables the tool to use a larger spot size, while maintaining a high capture rate of yield-limiting defects in many cases. This "spot migration," combined with the AIT Fusion UV's dramatic increase in scanning speed, permits the system to achieve up to a four-fold increase in throughput in comparison to the AIT XP platform. The AIT Fusion UV also comes equipped with KLA-Tencor's proven inline automatic defect classification (iADC) technology, which provides real-time feedback on defect types while the wafer is being inspected. iADC enables better nuisance filtering, defect review-sample reduction, and trending by killer-defect type -- all of which result in efficient and cost-effective process monitoring as well as faster problem resolution.
The AIT Fusion UV is currently available for demonstrations and product orders.
About KLA-Tencor: KLA-Tencor is the world leader in yield management and process control solutions for semiconductor manufacturing and related industries. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with operations around the world, KLA-Tencor ranked #6 on S&P's 2002 index of the top 500 companies in the U.S. KLA-Tencor is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol KLAC. Additional information about the company is available on the Internet at kla-tencor.com
NOTE: Adaptive Mode is a trademark of KLA-Tencor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: KLA-Tencor |
