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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 16yearcycle who wrote (32878)	10/19/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

Chip makers more ready for copper than equipment suppliers are, survey finds By J. Robert Lineback Semiconductor Business News (10/19/99, 10:17:22 AM EDT) AUSTIN, Tex. -- Surprisingly, semiconductor manufacturers appear more optimistic than wafer fab suppliers about the early build-up of copper-based ICs in the next decade, concludes an industry survey of companies conducted during the second half of the summer. Other key survey results to be presented here today at the Semicon Southwest conference show some serious "disconnects" in perceptions of fab suppliers and chip-making companies in the readiness of a handful of important tools, such as deposition of copper seed, chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), post-CMP clean, and system to prevent copper contamination in wafrer fabs. The summary of the "Copper Critical Survey" will be presented in the morning before a session at the Semicon Southwest by the sponsors of the poll--Philips Analytical and the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) trade group. A total of 265 participants responded to the survey in July and August. Preliminary results from the survey were released at the end of August, showing an overall level of optimism for early volume of copper ICs. A majority of the respondents indicated they believed at least 10% of the total semiconductor revenues would come from devices made with copper interconnects in about three years (see Aug. 31 story). Coppper interconnect on ICs are expected to be required in future generations of ICs because of speed bottleneck existing in aluminum wiring. New low-k dielectric insulators are also needed to prevent capacitance in complex devices in the future. While copper processing has been building momentum for the past two years, only a few IC manufacturers are now producing products with the metal--IBM Corp. and Motorola Inc., in particular. Other major chip makers are planning initial copper devices in the next two years with 0.18- and 0.13-micron processes. The copper survey was launched by Philips and SEMI to help the industry identify the pace of copper and to avoid "disconnects" in expectations similar to the great divide that occurred between chip makers and equipment suppliers in 300-mm wafer systems. In 1998, equipment suppliers became disgruntled over the lack of orders for 300-mm systems after investing billions of dollars in R&D. "That's a black eye for both sides of the industry to wear," said John Hanselman, director of semiconductor operations at Philips Analytical's U.S. subsidiary in Natick, Mass. "Much of the purpose of this survey is to help suppliers gauge their own investments and the pace of copper as well as to provide information back to the IC manufacturers." A follow-up survey is planned. There were some surprises in the current survey results. "What became immediately apparent from the data was IC manufacturers are more confident in the speed of adoption than equipment suppliers, which is a little bit different than we expected," Hanselman said before today's presentation of the survey results at Semicon Southwest. "Over 40% of the IC manufacturers said they saw up to 10% of the total dollar shipments in 2001, which was a surprise. This means they are ready to make investments for production now." But the response from the representatives at equipment and materials suppliers showed most being conservative in their forecasts, putting copper's ramp to a 10% level of semiconductor revenues in the 2002 or 2003 time frame. Other survey findings show respondents expecting logic devices--such as microprocessors--leading the way in copper by 2000 with ASIC following in volume in 2001. Memory and system-on-a-chip designs were viewed as lagging and not expected until after 2003, according to the survey. Over 70% of the survey respondents indicated that they expected tungsten to be used in vias and contact plugs, meaning that most processes will not initially be pure dual damascene copper architectures, Hanselman suggested. The survey did not gauge how long tungsten would be used in copper processes, and "that subject will be added to a follow-on survey," he said. The survey also made it clear that confusion existed in the selection of a low-k dielectric frontrunner. "Many respondents checked off two or three candidates," lamented Hanselman, who had hope only one basic type of dielectric material would be selected. Opinions about the production readiness of tools also differed between suppliers and users. The "big disconnect" occurred in CMP, post-CMP cleaning, barrier deposition and copper contamination, said Hanselman. Chip makers and equipment suppliers seems to be on the same page when it came to other systems, such as dielectric lithography, copper fill electroplating tools, and copper yield management systems. "The important message here for the equipment suppliers is that they think they are done, but the semiconductor manufacturers are far from being convinced," Hanselman noted. "We all rise and fall together. That's was clear from the 300-mm experience. We cannot be in a situation where we are out of trust and not communicating because companies will make bad capital spending plans and that will impact all of use for years to come." semibiznews.com