Tuesday, August 22, 2023
ASM International N.V. has completed the purchase of a strategic plot of land in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Monday, July 17, 2023
Oxford Instruments Reveals Advanced ALD Research System for Quantum Applications
“We have experienced high pre-launch interest from the market for the PlasmaPro ASP for superconducting quantum materials. The PlasmaPro ASP is designed to address key quantum challenges with an innovative high-rate source design and high machine up-time, as well as an intuitive software user interface called PTIQ."
“With the source design derived from our Atomfab® ALD production product, the PlasmaPro ASP retains process speed and robustness, with the inclusion of additional hardware to increase flexibility, which offers a unique solution to the quantum market to speed up development cycles.” Dr Russ Renzas, Quantum Technologies Market Manager, Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, Americas.
The collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) on the plasma source design yielded accolades, with their joint research paper receiving recognition at the American Vacuum Society’s 22nd International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (AVS ALD/ALE 2022) conference.
With a primary focus on quantum technology, the PlasmaPro ASP facilitates the creation of essential low-resistivity and high-Tc superconducting nitride films. The system's intuitive software interface, PTIQ, along with its adaptable source design from Oxford Instruments' Atomfab ALD production product, ensures both rapid processing and robustness.
Anticipation for the PlasmaPro ASP's launch, especially for its potential in superconducting quantum materials, underscores the imminent impact of this innovation. Collaborative efforts with TU/e will likely accelerate advancements in quantum technology and various applications like electronics and photonics.
Professor Erwin Kessels of TU/e praises the PlasmaPro ASP for its distinctive capabilities, set to invigorate diverse research and innovation prospects.
Breakthrough Ultra-fast ALD Product - Oxford Instruments (oxinst.com)
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
TNO heads consortium developing ‘Third-generation electrolyzers with SparkNano ALD technology
Dutch research center TNO, along with three technical universities and several enterprises, is leading a consortium to develop "Third-generation electrolyzers," aiming to create more affordable and efficient electrolyzers for hydrogen production.
The collaboration will focus on designing advanced stacks and components for electrolysers, as well as exploring manufacturing technologies. The goal is to establish a significant presence in the global electrolyser market. The five-year project will investigate various methods of water splitting and CO2 electrolysis, with the expectation that different concepts will synergize and contribute to the development of cutting-edge production technology.
TNO's Atomic Layer Deposition technology, marketed by SparkNano, holds promise for creating novel electrolysers. The initiative is part of NXTGEN HIGHTECH, which aims to provide innovative solutions in key areas of production technology. Participating companies, knowledge institutions, and groups include Admatec, Bosch Transmission Technology, Coval Energy, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, Magneto Special Anodes, and others.
Links &sources:
TNO heads consortium developing 'Third-generation electrolyzers' - (industryandenergy.eu)
SparkNano | Spatial Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technology (spark-nano.com)
Friday, June 2, 2023
ASM breaks ground on new state-of-the-art innovation and manufacturing center in Hwaseong, Korea
ASM International N.V. is embarking on the construction of a state-of-the-art innovation and manufacturing center in Hwaseong, South Korea. With a groundbreaking ceremony to be held soon, the expansion project is part of ASM's US$100 million investment plan and follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of South Korea. The investment aims to bolster ASM's research and product development infrastructure and increase manufacturing capacity to meet the growing demand for semiconductors. The company also intends to create job opportunities in engineering, R&D, and manufacturing, contributing to workforce development in Korea.
The ceremony will be attended by ASM's CEO, Benjamin Loh, and other dignitaries, including political figures and business partners. Loh expressed his enthusiasm for the expansion in Hwaseong, highlighting the potential and dedication of the Korean people. The investment signifies ASM's commitment to Korea and its ambition to grow the business while enabling the development of advanced technologies in the semiconductor industry. Hwaseong has played a vital role in ASM's growth, serving as a hub for advanced R&D and technology for both local and global customers.
The existing Hwaseong facility, which currently employs over 450 people, will be expanded to accommodate more employees as the company continues to grow. The new extension will add 31,000 m2 across eight floors, more than doubling the facility's R&D area and nearly tripling its manufacturing area. YK Kim, Chairman of ASM Korea, emphasized that the expansion is an investment in people and the semiconductor ecosystem in Korea, aiming to support the country's semiconductor industry growth in collaboration with the government, customers, and suppliers.
ASM's commitment to Hwaseong demonstrates its dedication to the Korean market and its goal of facilitating domestic semiconductor innovation while meeting global customer demands. The company's local R&D team has been instrumental in developing groundbreaking technologies in the industry, such as ALD QCM quad chamber modules, TENZA™ ALD for high aspect ratio gap-fill, and high-quality PEALD silicon and metal oxides and nitrides for various applications.
Release of TENZA(TM): BALD Engineering - Born in Finland, Born to ALD: ASM International launches TENZA ALD Quad Chambers for silicon oxide gap-fill and liners on the XP8 platform
ASM Korea MOU: BALD Engineering - Born in Finland, Born to ALD: Dutch ALD euipment leader ASM to invest $100 mil. in Korea for facility expansion
Finnish ALD equipment manufacturer Beneq has entered a partnership with Lung Pien Vacuum Industry Co., Ltd. in Taiwan.
Finnish ALD equipment manufacturer Beneq has partnered with Taiwan's Lung Pien Vacuum Industry to promote ALD technology for optical applications. They held a seminar to exchange knowledge and explore ALD solutions for mass production challenges. ALD is a process that deposits atomic thin films with advantages like large-area coverage and precise film thickness control. Beneq, a global leader in ALD equipment, introduced AtomGrassTM ALD, a wide-angle broadband anti-reflective coating. Lung Pien will provide Beneq's equipment and services to its optics customers in the Asia-Pacific region. The partnership aims to actively promote ALD coating technology for high-end curved lenses in Taiwan's optical market.
Finnish ALD equipment manufacturer Beneq has formed a partnership with Lung Pien Vacuum Industry, a prominent vacuum coating equipment manufacturer based in Taiwan. The collaboration aims to promote ALD technology for emerging optical applications, such as camera lenses for mobile phones and automobiles. In April, the two companies organized an "ALD Optical Coating" seminar in Taiwan, inviting major optical manufacturers to exchange knowledge and explore ALD solutions for mass production challenges. ALD is a deposition process that involves the formation of self-limited reactions between precursor gases and a substrate surface, resulting in atomic thin films with advantages like large-area coverage, high step coverage, low-temperature processing, and precise film thickness control.
Beneq has been a pioneer in industrial ALD production since 1984 and has established itself as a global leader in ALD equipment manufacturing. The company offers a wide range of technical products and R&D services, with a focus on finding industrial ALD solutions through collaboration and co-development. Beneq recently introduced AtomGrassTM ALD, an innovative wide-angle broadband anti-reflective (AR) coating. This solution provides exceptional anti-reflective properties with less than 0.07% average reflectance across a wide wavelength range and significantly improves performance at high angles of incidence.
According to Peter Hsieh, Sales Director of Beneq's Advanced ALD Business Unit, the demand for ALD is increasing in the nano-processes of the integrated circuit industry. ALD has replaced traditional methods like CVD and PVD for many key thin-film processes. Hsieh believes that ALD's development is now closer to industrial-grade 12-inch mass production equipment, opening up excellent application opportunities in various fields, including optoelectronics, automotive, medical materials, and more.
Lung Pien Vacuum Industry, founded in 1991, has a longstanding relationship with the optical industry. The company offers a comprehensive range of services, including product design, development, equipment manufacturing, production planning, operator training, and process design consulting. While Lung Pien primarily focuses on vacuum evaporation and sputtering equipment manufacturing, thin film process technology services, and other related products, their partnership with Beneq will enable them to provide Beneq's ALD equipment and services to their extensive network of optics customers in the Asia-Pacific region. The collaboration between Beneq and Lung Pien aims to actively promote ALD coating technology for high-end curved lenses in Taiwan's optical market, leveraging ALD's ability to provide uniform conformal thin film layers for complex structures.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Forge Nano Partners with Aleon Renewable Metals for Battery Recycling and Supply of ALD Materials for EV Batteries
Monday, April 24, 2023
Oxford Instruments to supply KAUST with hardware upgrades and ALE systems
Significant partnership with KAUST: hardware upgrade and support its cutting-edge ALD research with the addition of ALE capability
Monday, April 10, 2023
Korea’s Jusung Engineering set to supply non-memory chip gears overseas
“The test conducted by our global customer on the Guidance Series, an ALD equipment developed for the first time in the world in 2020, has been completed and we expect the purchase order to come in the first half of this year,” Hwang told Maeil Business Newspaper.
Monday, December 19, 2022
Thin layers paved the way for ASMI’s success - Outgoing CTO Ivo Raaijmakers explains what atomic layer deposition has brought the semiconductor industry
This vision has come true. The technique that ASMI acquired through Microchemistry – atomic layer deposition (ALD) – has become an integral part of the semiconductor manufacturing process. And that’s just the beginning, according to Raaijmakers. The demands placed on material layers are ever higher – thinner, more uniform, featuring just the right properties – and ALD is the best technique to meet them, the former CTO argues.
Well before ALD had proven itself in the deposition of high-k materials, Raaijmakers was already looking at which applications would follow. On his initiative, ASMI acquired Korean company Genitech in 2004, a specialist in plasma-enhanced ALD technology (PEALD). Plasmas are more reactive than un-ionized gases and therefore can deposit materials at lower temperatures. Because chipmakers often have to deal with strict temperature budgets, PEALD expands the scope of ALD.
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Kokusai Electric relies on patterned 3D substrates in thin film process metrology from Chipmetrics
Friday, December 16, 2022
MIT.nano adds new instruments to create and analyze at the nanoscale from Arradiance
Friday, November 25, 2022
Applied Materials Delivers Strong FY 2022 Numbers including Picosun ALD
LINK: https://ir.appliedmaterials.com/
The company’s uniquely enabling technology and growing installed base will be its key growth drivers as chipmakers accelerate ramping up of new process nodes in R&D for high-volume manufacturing.
Key developments in FY 2022
- Applied Materials acquired Picosun, a Finland-based innovator in atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology. This acquisition broadens Applied’s product portfolio and puts it in a great position to capture a large portion of the specialty semiconductor market in the coming years.
- Collaboration with the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute under Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). IME’s strategic R&D capabilities complement well Applied’s expertise in advanced packaging solutions and will accelerate material, equipment and process technology solutions for hybrid bonding and other emerging, 3D chip integration technologies.
- Introduced new Ioniq™ PVD system to solve wiring resistance challenges of 2D scaling. This new integrated solution offers a significant reduction in electrical resistance, which has become a critical bottleneck to further improvements in chip performance and power.
- Semiconductor Systems revenue increased 15% YoY in FY 2022 to $18,797 million on account of strong orders as customers continued to invest in next-generation technology.
- Applied Materials’ service revenue increased 11% YoY in FY 2022 to $5,543 million, accounting for 21% of the annual net revenue.
- Display and Adjacent Markets revenue decreased 19% YoY in FY 2022 to $ 1,331 million.
- Non-GAAP gross margin was at 46.6% in FY 2022.
- Non-GAAP operating profit grew by over 7% to $7.86 billion.
- Non-GAAP EPS increased nearly 13% to $7.70.
- Total ending backlog increased 62% to $19 billion with Semiconductor Systems backlog increasing 90% to nearly $12.7 billion and services backlog increasing 30% to over $5.6 billion.
- The company generated about $5.4 billion in operating cash flow and over $4.6 billion in free cash flow.
- The company’s installed base grew 8% YoY in FY 2022.
- The number of tools under comprehensive, long-term service contracts grew 16% YoY with the over 90% renewal rate for these agreements demonstrating the value customers see in subscription services.
- New export regulations for US semiconductor technology sold in China reduced Semiconductor Systems and AGS fourth quarter revenue by approximately $280 million.
Monday, October 10, 2022
Samco launches new ICP Tornado Plasma ALD system
“We are also considering a cluster ALD system that can connect multiple reaction chambers for production” says Tsukasa Kawabe, President and COO of Samco. “The launch of the AD-800LP will greatly enhance our presence in the world ALD equipment market.” Tsukasa adds.
NCD’s ALD technology and equipment for oxidation barrier of copper-based substrates
Copper is a metal used widely as the main material of Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and Lead Frame. But it is required to protect the oxidation because copper is easily oxidized in the condition of humidity, temperature, and pH, etc.
Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold (ENIG), Organic
Solderability Preservative (OSP), Immersion Sn or Ag (ImSn or ImAg) is
generally used to prevent oxidation of opened copper area after Solder Masking
in PCBs. The lead Frame is protected from oxidizing by plating Au, Ag, Pd, and Ni
after Lead Frame forming.
Recently, many groups have studied about preventing
oxidation on the surface of copper by various corrosion protection layers of
ALD metal oxides. Especially, Appling Al2O3 layer to the oxidation barrier is
actively being researched.
< Surface images and TEM & EDS of Cu plates coated by ALD thin films after annealing test >
After depositing Al2O3 layers on Cu-plated plates with various film thicknesses and process temperatures, the oxidation and corrosion behavior of the coated copper was examined with different annealing times in the oven. There was no oxidation before annealing, but after annealing for 1hr, as the sample’s thickness lowered and process temperature decreased, the oxidation happened and increased gradually. There was no oxidation on the plates coated with 50~60 ALD cycles and at process temperatures of 70~100℃ after annealing for 5hr, and oxidation didn’t occur only in the case of 60 cycles and 100℃ after annealing for 24hr.
To analyze the change of the structure and confirm the oxidation
behavior, TEM and EDS were measured on 5 and 10nm Al2O3 coated Cu plates at 100℃.
The results showed that a thick Cu oxide layer was built by combining Cu coming
out through the 5nm Al2O3 layer and outer oxygen after annealing.
On the other side, in the case of depositing 10nm Al2O3 film,
the ALD layer was maintained after annealing, so Cu oxide layer wasn’t built on the
surface. Therefore it confirmed that 10nm ALD Al2O3 layer showed an excellent
corrosion barrier.
< ALD equipment for Lead Frame and PCB >
Copper-based PCBs and Lead Frames for semiconductors may have great properties to prevent humidity and oxygen by ALD-coated corrosion barriers.
NCD has high volume and large area ALD equipment and
technology for this kind of application. ALD tools for Lead Frames could be
used by adding a dedicated transfer module on the base of Lucida GSH Series. And
NCD has been developing new ALD equipment, Lucida GP Series, for large and
flexible PCB substrates. NCD would extend the new ALD application area continuously
through constant R&D.
Source:
http://www.ncdtech.co.kr/2018/bbs/board.php?bo_table=eng_board_05&wr_id=57
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Global fab equipment spending is expected to increase 9% YOY to a new all-time high of US$99 billion in 2022
Monday, September 26, 2022
Meet Atlant3D Technologies with CEO Maksym Plakhotnyuk
Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) - Compound Semiconductor magazine interview with Beneq
Richard Stevenson, Editor of Compound Semiconductor magazine, talks to Mikko Söderlund, Beneq's Head of Sales for its Semiconductor ALD Business Unit, about the phenomenal interest in this sector.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
Oxford Instruments and ITRI report GaN HEMT device performance by ALD and ALE
GaN HEMT device performance - Oxford Instruments and ITRI announce breakthrough development in GaN HEMT device performance
Thursday, September 15, 2022
ATLANT 3D Nanosystems Secures 15M USD Investments to Enable Atomic Layer Advanced Manufacturing for Electronics
Saturday, September 3, 2022
ASM reports that the ALD market is expected to grow by a CAGR of 16%-20% from 2020 to 2025
ASM International presented its Q2/2022 report in July and a new record orders of EUR 943 million driven by robust new node spending in logic/foundry and by recent wins in memory, particularly for ALD gap-fill in 3D-NAND and continued adoption of HKMG in DRAM.
- TechInsights expects WFE to increase by 21% in 2022 (July 2022)
- Strongest growth in leading-edge nodes, spending on 7nm and below expected to grow from ~25% of WFE in 2020 to ~42% of WFE in 2025
- Gartner expects total WFE to increase by 19% in 2022 (July 2022)