Santa Clara, CA--Applied Materials has introduced a defect-inspection system called UVision, which the company claims is the semiconductor industry's first laser 3-D bright-field inspection tool. The UVision system targets chipmakers' need for higher inspection sensitivity and productivity as they move to 65-nm manufacturing and beyond.
Applied Materials says UVision will enabling chip manufacturers to uncover and resolve "killer" defects that until now could not bee seen. The UVision system, which has a 30-nm sensitivity at production speeds, marks Applied Materials' entry into the bright-field inspection market. The system will compete against those produced by KLA-Tencor (san Jose, CA), which has the largest share of the wafer-inspection market.
"The UVision system takes customers far into the future of bright-field inspection, setting the direction for the industry's push into deep sub-nanometer geometries," said Mike Splinter, president and CEO of Applied Materials. "The UVision system is a key part of Applied Materials' growth strategy in the expanding metrology and inspection market."
Bright-field inspection is used by chipmakers to find the most critical defects during wafer manufacturing. Traditional bright-field systems use a multiwavelength lamp source, single light-detection channel, and CCD detection, providing users with limited imaging capability. The UVision system illuminates the wafer with multiple beams from a 266-nm deep-UV laser source. Light reflected from the wafer is collected using high-efficiency PMT (photomultiplier-tube) technology. The company claims the result is high sensitivity in low-light situations without compromising throughput. Simultaneous bright-field and 3-D imaging can rapidly detect both shallow-pattern defects (bright-field channel) and topographical defects such as particles and voids (3-D channel) in a single scan.
"The introduction of new materials and processes at the 65-nm technology node has produced new classes of small defects that directly affect fab yield," noted Gilad Almogy, vice president and general manager of Applied Materials' Process Diagnostics and Control group. "The UVision system has proven its value for critical chip layers, such as STI (shallow-trench isolation), contact, poly, and gate etch, where chipmakers have isolated killer defects not found with traditional bright-field tools."