EW – Production Edition – AM Materials Research, EVG Fusion Wafer Bonder & More

Advantest Metrology Scanning Electron Microscope

E3650 MASK MVM-SEM. (Image courtesy of Advantest.)

Advantest has announced its Multi Vision Metrology Scanning Electron Microscope (MASK MVM-SEM), the E3650. Using electron beam scanning technology, this tool measures fine pattern dimensions on photomasks with higher precision and stability.

The E3650’s higher throughput enables increased measurement required by more complex patterning and an increased number of masks due to multiple patterning. In addition to its use with photomasks, the system provides improved performance when used to measure EUV masks and master templates for nanoimprint applications.

For more information, visit Advantest’s website.

AM Materials Research

New materials research. (Image courtesy of Applied Materials.)

Applied Materials (AM) and National University of Singapore (NUS) have established the Applied Materials-NUS Advanced Materials Corporate Lab, which has the goal of accelerating the discovery of new materials that can be quickly transferred into commercial applications for manufacturing future generations of semiconductors.

According to AM, “Moore’s Law scaling is becoming challenged as emerging applications based on AI and big data require orders of magnitude improvements in chip performance and efficiency. Materials-enabled scaling including novel device architectures and new materials are needed to achieve these improvements.”

For more information, visit AM’s website.

Bruker Atomic Force Microscopes

AFM resolution on polymers. (Image courtesy of Bruker.)

Bruker has released its AFM-nDMA mode for dimension atomic force microscopes (AFMs).AFM-nDMA provides nanoscale viscoelastic measurements that match bulk dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) over the entire frequency range that is typical in bulk rheological measurements.

AFM-nDMA works directly at rheological frequencies, quantifies preload and adhesion, and comes with absolute calibration. As a result, it generates entire master curves of storage modulus, loss modulus and loss tangent, including analysis for activation energy, thereby providing polymer rheology at the nanoscale.

For more information, visit Bruker’s website.

EVG Fusion Wafer Bonder

BONDSCALE Automated Production Fusion Bonding System. (Image courtesy of EVG.)

EVG has introduced its BONDSCALE automated production fusion bonding system, which is designed to fulfill a range of fusion/molecular wafer bonding applications, including engineered substrate manufacturing and 3D integration approaches that use layer-transfer processing, such as monolithic 3D (M3D).

With BONDSCALE, EVG is helping to address long-term challenges for “More Moore” logic device scaling identified in the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS). Incorporating enhanced edge alignment technology, BONDSCALE provides a boost in wafer bond productivity and a lower cost of ownership compared to existing fusion bonding platforms.

For more information, visit EVG’s website.

LPKF PCB Prototype Creation

ProtoMat system. (Image courtesy of LPKF.)

LPKF has developed circuit board plotters and laser systems for PCB prototype creation. The production of printed circuit board prototypes requires machines that generate the layout and drill through holes. If users rely on the wet chemical process, they also need extensive equipment in addition to the actual etching plant.

In order to minimize this investment, compact multifunctional machines that do not require wet chemistry are ideal. The LPKF ProtoLaser systems or LPKF circuit board plotters of the ProtoMat family allow users to reduce both their equipment pool and the number of process steps. This makes prototyping faster, and it can be performed in-house.

For more information, visit LPKF’s website.

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