INDUSTRY NEWS

300-mm Imperative

Trikon deposits tool in Taiwan

Trikon Technologies says a major Taiwanese foundry has purchased the vendor's Planar 300 tool for installation at a 300-mm fab. The system will be used to evaluate Trikon's Orion 2.2 low-k dielectric. The Orion system is used for next-generation copper damascene processing during the making of logic ICs with linewidths ≥0.10 µm, Trikon says.

The supplier, which is based in Newport, Wales, regards the installation as a major chance to tap into a rapidly growing market for low-k equipment sales. Nigel Wheeler, president and CEO, says the foundry "is at the leading edge of semiconductor process development." The Planar system is a bridge tool between 200- and 300-mm wafer processing. Orion is a family of low-k dielectric materials that can be extended to below 1.9. Orion 2.2 is a nanoporous organosilicate glass with a pore size of 1 to 4 nm.

Japan sees tool debut

A Japanese consortium has purchased the first orbital hard-platen polishing tool to be used in that country, the system's manufacturer says. SpeedFam-IPEC says the unnamed technology alliance ordered a Momentum300, a 300-mm CMP tool. The consortium will use the Momentum for research and development in low-k dielectric materials and copper processes at the 0.10-µm technology node. SpeedFam's president and CEO, Richard Faubert, sees the order as a "strategic showcase" for the system's capabilities. Faubert says the consortium comprises "influential manufacturers with a broad base among top Japanese chipmakers."