News

10 November 2006

 

Bede ships system for controlling strain and relaxation in SiGe to US manufacturing consortium  

Bede X-ray Metrology of Durham, UK says it has shipped another BedeMetrix-F system with ScribeView to a ‘leading US semiconductor manufacturing consortium’. The process control system, designed for in-line high-volume manufacturing, will be used to control strain and relaxation in SiGe on product wafer metrology pads for their 45nm process.

“The BedeMetrix-F with ScribeView offers advanced strained silicon process control for 65nm technology nodes and below,” says chief operating officer Jim Polasik. “ScribeView uses the patented Microsource x-ray generator and the latest in x-ray optics technology, and is capable of measurements on test pads and scribe lines down to 60 microns wide on product wafers, thereby eliminating the need for monitor wafers”.   

“In-line process control of strained silicon is becoming mandatory as the technology nodes are shrinking,” adds Frank Hochstenbach, global director of sales and marketing. “This consortium will benefit from the only production-proven system available for in-line measurement of strained epilayer composition, thickness and relaxation using high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD) and x-ray reflectivity (XRR) techniques.  There are over 35 tools in production fabs worldwide for this application, and this number will grow as strained silicon is adopted into the production process”.   

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