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Technology Stocks : KLA-Tencor Corporation (KLAC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SemiBull who wrote (1760)	2/17/2004 8:53:28 PM
From: SemiBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1779

Process control to take capex share, says KLA Tencor CEO Peter Clarke 02/16/2004 1:50 PM EST URL: siliconstrategies.com PARIS -- Integrated metrology, where measuring systems are used in-line on production wafers, have not been a great commercial success so far, Ken Schroeder, chief executive of KLA Tencor Corp. told the attendees at the Industry Strategy Symposium in Europe. But the growing significance of on-chip variation and the complexity of thin film composition means that this form of feedback must pick up in significance. It is also one of the reasons why process control is set to take a bigger proportion of the industry's capital expenditure. Schroeder said that in the mid-1990s it was down at 5 percent, but jumped to 10 percent of a $22 billion wafer fab equipment market. In the boom year of 2000 process control represented 11 percent of the $33 billion wafer fab equipment market. And in 2005 it would be 15 percent of a $38 billion market, Schroeder said. When asked where the process control would take market share form Schroeder said: "It has to be the process tools themselves. Manufacturers need to concentrate on more good die of a wafer rather just making more wafers." However Schroeder acknowledged that integrated metrology, rather than stand-alone metrology had been hyped as the next big thing back at the turn of the decade and it hadn't happened. Schroeder said that when used in-the-line, there was an inevitable trade off between sensitivity, throughout and cost and, with the exception of CMP, managers had not been prepared to sacrifice sensitivity. Schroeder added that with the move down to 130-nanometer and 90-nm processes in-line metrology was essential. He pointed out that at 130-micron barrier seed films for copper interconnect were simple and thick, whereas at 90-nm the proportion of nitrogen in the tantalum barrier seed layer becomes important. At 65-nm it becomes ultra-thin as well, compounding problems. "Today's films -- CMP and CVD -- require integrated metrology. Etch measurement is an emerging application and in future lithography critical dimension will require it," said Schroeder.