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KLA-Tencor and Soitec in SOI inspection project

KLA-Tencor and Soitec are collaborating to develop new SOI wafer inspection technologies to raise material quality and accelerate SOI's advance in sub-90 nm technology.
KLA-Tencor and Soitec have announced a joint program to improve the quality, yield and cost of production of SOI wafers used in high-performance, low-power-consumption IC applications. The joint development partnership (JDP) is expected to provide wafer and IC manufacturers with the industry s first wafer inspection system that is specifically optimized for SOI and meets the sensitivity requirements for the 90-nm and 65-nm nodes.

The first of these new inspection systems, which will be based on KLA-Tencor s Surfscan SP1, is expected to ship to Soitec in early 2004. In addition to SOI, the new inspection system will be compatible with advanced substrates such as strained silicon-on-insulator (SSOI) and silicon germanium-on-insulator (SGOI).

"As part of our strategy to usher these new materials into production, Soitec is working closely with chipmakers and equipment suppliers to make sure the infrastructure is in place for producing advanced substrate solutions optimized for our customers specific applications,” said Andre Auberton-Herve, president of Soitec. “Partnering with KLA- Tencor enables us to offer our experience in SOI to help them develop the tools our mutual customers need to ensure their SOI wafers are of the highest quality with extremely low defect densities.”

Detecting critical defects is essential to reducing defect density, as well as increasing yield and wafer quality. However, unlike traditional silicon substrates, SOI and other engineered substrates are composed of multiple film layers of different thickness (depending on the target IC application), which create interference effects that cause current inspection technologies to provide false and inconsistent defect readings, as well as inadequate overall sensitivity.

At the 65-nm node, where SOI adoption is expected to increase dramatically for the production of high-end microprocessors and logic ICs, even greater levels of inspection sensitivity will be needed.

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