Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Sales to 300 mm wafer market boosts Picosun to new record in Q2/2020

ESPOO, Finland, 28th July 2020 – Picosun Group, leading supplier of AGILE ALD® (Atomic Layer Deposition) thin film coating equipment and solutions, reports record sales during the second quarter of 2020. Especially the Group’s 300 mm production ALD technology was well welcomed by customers.

Total order intake in the second quarter of 2020 was 11,6 M€ and total net sales 9,8 M€. Picosun’s first quarter of 2020 was also successful. Order intake during the first half of the year was 22,3 M€ which resulted in 137% growth compared to the same period last year, and net sales was 20,5 M€, resulting in 51% growth.



Photonics market, including applications in lighting, optoelectronics, displays and sensors, was one of the key drivers behind Picosun’s growth. Picosun has dedicated a lot of work to developing turn-key industrial ALD solutions specifically for wafer sizes up to 200 mm. Photonics, sensor and lighting device manufacturers typically operate on these wafer sizes, and Picosun’s solutions have been sought after amongst these industries. Picosun has also entered the 300 mm production ALD market and has received first pilot orders for its novel 300 mm manufacturing solutions.

“I am very pleased of this excellent growth during the first half of 2020. We have managed well, even despite the challenges caused by the coronavirus outbreak earlier in the spring, and our customers have trust on us. We are happy to report several return customers as well as various multiple ALD system sales to the same customer. Our strategy to focus on industrial customers and large scale manufacturing is bearing fruit and interest towards our production ALD solutions is booming. Development and optimization of novel manufacturing ALD technologies for even bigger markets is proceeding and we are eagerly waiting to launch these disruptive solutions to the public later this year,” states Mr. Jussi Rautee, CEO of Picosun Group.

Friday, July 17, 2020

Atomic Layer Etch Expands To New Markets - AVS ALE2020 report

Mark Lapedus reports in SemiEngineering that is expanding to new markets as presented at the recent AVS ALE2020 Virtual conference.

At the conference companies, R&D organizations and universities presented papers on what’s next in ALE. They include:
  • Plasma ALE, which performs directional etches (anisotropic), is in production and expanding into applications beyond traditional silicon, such as gallium-nitride (GaN) and refractory metals.
  • Thermal ALE, which performs unidirectional etches (isotropic), is still in its infancy. Some are targeting thermal ALE for next-generation transistors.
  • The University of Colorado presented work on thermal ALE for metal gates, dielectrics, among others.
  • The University of Delaware presented some work on thermal ALE for metals and alloys. Others are also developing the technology.

According to Risto Puhakka, President at VLSI Research, within the overall etch market, ALE is still small, representing a “few hundred million dollar” business, according to VLSI Research. Applied, Lam and TEL are the major ALE players. Hitachi, Oxford and others compete here.

Judging by other informations known to BALD Engineering also PlasmaTherm is in the ALE market and ASM International has active R&D in ALE (Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9735024B2/en). Additional OEMs can be found by understanding the active IP filing in ALE.

The top IP filing OEMs include:

LAM Research Corp.
Tokyo Electron Ltd.
ASM IP Holding BV
Applied Materials Inc.
Beijing Naura Microelectronics Equipment Co. Ltd.
Multibeam Corp.
Oxford Instruments Nanotechnology Tools Ltd.
Picosun OY

The top filing IDMs/Foundries include:

Taiwan Semiconductor MFG Co. Ltd.
IBM
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
Intel Corp.
Globalfoundries Inc.
Micron Technology Inc.
Sandisk Technologies LLC

Source:
Atomic Layer Etch Expands To New Markets LINK


The Patbase ALE clustered IP family tree allows you to click and zoom in on a cluster and zoom in further to nodes (sub-clusters). 172 documents (families) have been selected (contain appropriate data), and are contain in these clusters. As can be see the ALE families overlap a lot with Atomic Layer Deposition Keyword clusters (Provided by TECHCET).



Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Virtual AVS ALD/ALE 2020 confernce summary

Here is a summary of the Virtual AVS ALD/ALE 2020 conference and BALD Engineering participation and Social Events during the confernece. For continued access to the presentations please see the AVS Summary below!

From the Monday invited speakers I would especially like to recommend the two talks on ALD and ALE, resp., by TEL Rob Clarke and LAM Keren Kanarik. As I have not watched all yet I will come with more review later.

Hope to meet some of you live at possibly the only live ALD Event 2020 - EFDS ALD for Industry in Freiburg Germany December 2-3, 2020 : LINK


Summary by AVS:

Conference Registration was strong with 800+ for Monday's Live Plenary; nearly 600 for the Tuesday and Wednesday Live Technical sessions; and about 360 for the Tuesday and Wednesday Live Tutorials. 

The ALD/ALE 2020 Online Scheduler and/or Mobile App contains 258 presentations: 22 Live Oral and Tutorial Lectures; 17 Invited Orals On Demand; 130 Contributed Orals On Demand; 89 Poster PDFs. 

All Live Technical and Tutorial Session recordings may be viewed by paid registrants by logging into the ALD/ALE 2020 Online Scheduler and/or Mobile App and selecting > Browse by Live Technical/Tutorial Sessions > Select Day > Select Session > View Recording.

Live Monday Invited Speakers:

  • Mikko Ritala (University of Helsinki, Finland), "Meet the ALD 2020 Innovator Awardee"
  • Robert Clark (TEL Technology Center‚ America‚ LLC), "Selective and Atomic Scale Processes to Enable Future Nano-Electronics" 
  • Hyun-Chul Choi (LG Display, South Korea) "The First Application of ALD Technology in Display Industry"
  • Frank Rosowski (BASF SE‚ Germany), "ALD on Powders for Catalysis"
  • Keren Kanarik (Lam Research, USA), "The Flip Side of the Story: Atomic Layer Etching"

Live Tuesday Invited Speakers:

  • Charles Winter (Wayne State University, USA), "Thermal Atomic Layer Deposition of Noble Metal Films Using Non-Oxidative Coreactants" 
  • ALD Student Finalist Awardee (Winner): Jeff Schulpen (Eindhoven University of Technology‚ Netherlands), "Mixing It Up: Tuning Atomic Ordering in 2-D Mo1-xWxS2 Alloys"
  • ALD Student Finalist Awardee: Saba Ghafourisaleh (University of Helsinki‚ Finland), "Deposition of Conductive PEDOT Thin Films with EDOT and ReCl5 Precursors"
  • ALD Student Finalist Awardee: Mikhail Krishtab (KU Leuven/Imec‚ Belgium), "Resistless Lithography Based on Local Surface Modification of Halogenated Amorphous Carbon"
  • ALD Student Finalist Awardee: Karina Ashurbekova (CIC nanoGUNE BRTA‚ Spain), "Mimicking Chitin and Chitosan Type of Functionality with Novel Thin Films Grown by Molecular Layer Deposition"

Live Tuesday Tutorial Speakers:

  • Anjana Devi (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), "ALD Precursor Chemistry: Synthetic Routes, Purification and Evaluation of Precursors"
  • Neil Dasgupta (University of Michigan, USA), "Atomic Layer Engineering: Hardware Considerations for ALD System Design and Process Development"
  • Angel Yanguas-Gil (Argonne National Laboratory, USA), "ALD on High Aspect Ratio and Nanostructured Materials: from Fundamentals to Economics"

Live Wednesday Invited Speakers:

  • Noriaki Toyoda, Kota Uematsu (University of Hyogo‚ Japan), "Surface Reactions Between Metals and Diketone induced by Gas Cluster Ion Bombardments"
  • ALE 2020 Best Student Paper Award:Nicholas Chittock (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands),  "Isotropic Plasma ALE of Al2O3Using SF6Plasma and TMA"
  • Rudy Wojtecki (IBM Research – Almaden), "Monolayer Lithography: Exploiting Inhibition Contrast from the Extreme Ultraviolet Irradiation of Organic Monolayers for Area Selective Depositions"
  • Jean-Sebastien Lehn (EMD Performance Materials), "Super-Conformal ALD of Metallic Mo Films by Simultaneous Deposition and Etch"
  • Jeffrey W. Elam (Argonne National Laboratory), "Process Optimization in Atomic Layer Deposition Using Machine Learning"

Live Wednesday  Tutorial Speakers:

  • Annelies Delabie (imec, Belgium), "Growth Mechanisms and Selectivity During Atomic Layer Deposition"
  • Simon Elliott (Schrödinger, Ireland), "Self-Limiting Surface Reactions for Atomic-Level Control of Materials Processing" 
  • Mark Kushner (University of Michigan, USA), "Fundamentals of ALE – Optimizing Passivation and Etch"

All On Demand session recordings and posters may be viewed by registrants by logging into the ALD/ALE 2020 Online Scheduler and/or Mobile App and selecting > Browse by On Demand Sessions > Select Topic > Select Presentation.

ALD On Demand Invited Speakers:

  • Julien Bachmann (University of Erlangen, Germany), “ALD from Dissolved Precursors: Same Principles, Original Materials”
  • Bram Hoex (UNSW Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering, Australia), “ALD Enabling High-Efficiency Solar Cells”
  • Andrew Kummel (University of California, San Diego, USA), “Deposition of High Thermal Conductivity AlN Heat Spreader Films”
  • Mark Losego (Georgia Tech, USA), “Vapor Phase Infiltration for Transforming Polymers into Organic Inorganic Hybrid Materials: Process Thermodynamics and Kinetics”
  • Catherine Marichy (University Lyon, France), “ALD of BN for Membrane Application in Water Treatment”
  • Miika Mattinen (Uhelsinki, Finland), “Exploring ALD 2D Chalcogenides Beyond MoS2
  • Toshihide Nabatame (National Institute for Materials Science, Japan), “Study of ALD HfO2-Based High-k for GaN Power Devices and Ferroelectric Devices”
  • Nathanaelle Schneider (CNRS, France), “Tuning Properties of ALD Oxide and Sulfide Materials for Photovoltaic Applications”
  • Mahdi Shirazi (Eindhoven, The Netherlands), “Atomistic Simulation of 2D-TMDs Growth by ALD”
  • Henrik Soensteby (University of Oslo, Norway), “Low-temperature Epitaxy of Complex Oxides”
  • Matthias Young (University of Missouri, USA), “From the Noise: Measuring Atomic Structure in Amorphous Thin Films Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition”

ALE On Demand Invited Speakers:

  • Sumiko Fujisaki (Hitachi Ltd., Research & Development Group, Japan), “Thermal ALE of Co by Organometallic Complexes”
  • Akiko Hirata (Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp., Japan), “Highly Selective Atomic Layer Etching for Semiconductor Application”
  • Anil Mane (Argonne National Lab, USA), “Novel Chemistries for Layer-by-Layer Etching of 2D Semiconductor Coatings and Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Materials”
  • Gottlieb Oehrlein (University of Maryland, USA), “Achieving Selective Material Removal in Plasma-Based Atomic Layer Etching (ALE) of SiO2
  • Simon Ruel (CEA-LETI, France), “GaN Damage Evaluation After Conventional Plasma Etching and Anisotropic Atomic Layer Etching”
  • Andrew Teplyakov (University of Delaware, USA), “Mechanistic Insights into Thermal Dry Atomic Layer Processing of Metals”

Congratulations to the ALD 2020 Innovator Awardee Mikko Ritala, University of Helsinki, Finland

Congratulations to the following Student Awardees. Be sure to view their presentation recordings.

ALD 2020 Best Student Paper Awardee: 

  • Jeff Schulpen (Eindhoven University of Technology‚ Netherlands), "Mixing It Up: Tuning Atomic Ordering in 2-D Mo1-xWxS2 Alloys"

ALD 2020 Student Finalists:

  • Saba Ghafourisaleh (University of Helsinki‚ Finland), "Deposition of Conductive PEDOT Thin Films with EDOT and ReCl5 Precursors"
  • Mikhail Krishtab (KU Leuven/Imec‚ Belgium), "Resistless Lithography Based on Local Surface Modification of Halogenated Amorphous Carbon"
  • Karina Ashurbekova (CIC nanoGUNE BRTA‚ Spain), "Mimicking Chitin and Chitosan Type of Functionality with Novel Thin Films Grown by Molecular Layer Deposition"

ALE 2020 Best Student Paper Awardee: 

  • Nicholas Chittock (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands), “Isotropic Plasma ALE of Al2O3 Using SF6 Plasma and TMA” 

ALE  2020 Student Finalists:

  • Gaëlle Antoun (GREMI Université d’Orléans/CNRS, France), “Cryo-ALE of SiO2 with C4FPhysisorption: Process Understanding and Enhancement” 
  • Jessica Murdzek (University of Colorado – Boulder), “Thermal Atomic Layer Etching of Nickel Using SO2Cl2and P(CH3)3
  • Xia (Gary) Sang, University of California Los Angeles, “Thermal-Plasma ALE on Selected Metals for EUV and Integration Processes”
  • David Zywotko (University of Colorado – Boulder), “Blocking Thermal Atomic Layer Etching with Removable Etch Stop Layers”

Submit a Manuscript by October 14 to the AVS Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A (JVST A) Atomic Layer Deposition and Atomic Layer Etching Special Topic Collection. In addition JVST A awarded the JVST A 2019 Best ALD Paper Award to:

  • Erika Maeda, Toshihide Nabatame, Masafumi Hirose, Mari Inoue, Akihiko Ohi, Naoki Ikeda, and Hajime Kiyono | JVST A 38, 032409 (2020), “Correlation Between SiO2 Growth Rate and Difference in Electronegativity of Metal–Oxide Underlayers for Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition Using Tris(dimethylamino)silane Precursor” 

Save the Date for ALD/ALE 2021 June 27-30, 2021 in Tampa, Florida > www.ald2021.avs.org

5th Annual CMC Conference, October 21-22, 2020

 

Worldwide Web Event on Critical Materials

5th Annual Event Will Happen in "Virtual Space"


 

 

Just announced - The Critical Materials Council (CMC) Conference Committee  is taking the 5th annual CMC Conference into the "WorldWideWeb!"  The 2020 event will be delivered "live" weaving worldwide-web services into a valuable digital experience, uniquely configured to give you the best in web-based networking. The 2-days of conference will include keynotes, presentations, roundtables, and poster sessions, so block your calendars for October 21-22 to attend this live event.  

  


As an added incentive, attendees that register can choose to access CMC COVID-19 /Advisory Alert Workshops, featuring the most updated news on materials & markets.

 

 

This year's conference features powerful sessions focused on  

critical materials used for Semiconductor Device Manufacturing

including a new 4th session on Heterogeneous Integration using Packaging 

 

 

FEATURED KEYNOTE:

BRUCE TUFTS, VP OF TECHNOLOGY AND DIRECTOR OF FAB MATERIALS ORGANIZATION, INTEL CORP. presenting

"Critical Materials Pushing the Limits for Semiconductor Manufacturing"

 

This 5th Annual Critical Materials Council (CMC) Conference provides:

More than 25 powerful & actionable presentations, the popular Materials Action (TM) 

roundtable session, a supplier Poster session, and vital networking opportunities. 

and includes

* Updates on market dynamics and regulations,  

* Trends in the profitable control of all fab materials, and 

* Technology forecasts for future critical materials.

 

Selected Speakers:

Phil Hecker, WPL Supplier Quality Director, Texas Instruments  

Superior Supplier Quality:

Challenges in the Semiconductor Materials Supply-Chain

Yuval Shaharabani, Director, Corporate Procurement, Raw Materials TowerJazz Semiconductors 

Sulfuric Acid Concerns & Strategies

Nedal T. Nassar PhD, Chief, Materials

Flow Analysis, National Minerals Info Center, USGS

Metals/Minerals Resources & Supply-Chain Risk

Subramanian Iyer PhD, CHIPS Consortium Founder & UCLA Professor

The Future of Si as a Packaging Material

 

 

EVENT DETAILS:

 

Sessions I & II, October 22nd

Session III & IV, October 23rd

 

The conference follows the CMC Meeting (on October 20-21) and CMC Members only (Associates and Fabs) Joint Session (on October 21, 1-5pm). For more information about these meetings or the Conference, please contact Christine Yates by email here.

 

 

Register now at the Early Bird rate!

 

 


Join our sponsors: