Taiyo Nippon Sanso releases GaN MOCVD system
Production efficiency improved by two times compared to conventional systems
Taiyo Nippon Sanso has released the UR26K-CCD, an advanced mass production GaN MOCVD system with fully automated wafer handling and parts cleaning.
According to the company, it can increase production efficiency by approximately two times compared to conventional systems.
While Taiyo Nippon Sanso already offers the UR26K as a commercial production GaN MOCVD system, the UR26K-CCD is a new, improved model offering an upgraded automated transfer mechanism and an integrated system for dry-cleaning reactor parts to dramatically boost productivity.
The two key mechanisms added to the new system are cassette-to-cassette wafer handling and Integrated dry-cleaning. These features allow fully automated transfer of wafers inside the unit. Additionally, since the used parts inside the reactor are transferred within the system by the transfer robot to the separately-installed dry cleaning chamber and returned to the reactor after cleaning, the entire epitaxial growth process is handled with clean parts. This automated cycle eliminates the need to interrupt the operation of the growth chamber for the cleaning process, which increase in production efficiency of approximately 2X compared to conventional system.
Growing GaN on Si wafers can pose significant challenges to achieving reproducible results, a difficulty attributed to the contamination of wafers due to foreign material and wafer warping. According to the company, integrating the cleaning unit and maintaining the consistency of the reactor environment should result in improved reproducibility and higher yield ratios — in short, lower total cost of ownership.
The reactor configuration is the same as the conventional UR26K, which employs Taiyo Nippon Sanso's proprietary three laminar flow horizontal nozzles, gear-driven wafer rotation mechanism, and a 6-zone resistance heater for uniform film growth.
