Tegal Corporation, (Nasdaq:TGAL) an innovator of specialized production solutions for the fabrication of advanced MEMS, power ICs and optoelectronic devices, today announced it has received orders for a Tegal 110 DE/SE DRIE tool and for a TEGAL SMT AlN PVD system from two prominent research centers currently equipping state-of-the-art laboratory facilities. The DRIE tool will ship to a customer in South East Asia, who will use the tool for research in microsystems, microfluidics, and MEMS sensor applications, while the AlN PVD system will ship to a North American customer for research activities in the RF MEMS and piezoelectric sensor and actuator fields.
In both instances, the orders from these first-time Tegal customers were secured following a competitive bidding process.
The Tegal 110 DE/SE system is a high-density plasma etch tool featuring an inductively coupled plasma etch reactor and magnetic plasma confinement. The tool can run Tegal’s patented SHARP – Super High Aspect Ratio Process, achieving etched feature aspect ratios of > 100:1 in production environments. Together with its high reliability, broad process windows, and high etch rates, the Tegal 110 DE/SE system is a critical enabler for etching silicon (SE) and dielectric (DE) films found in the MEMS/MOEMS, bio-tech, and hi-voltage markets. Tegal 110 DRIE tools are presently employed in numerous research and development laboratories throughout the world, engaging in both commercial and academic research programs.
The Tegal SMT PVD system is a single module PVD tool optimized for high quality reactive sputtering of piezoelectric aluminum nitride (AlN) films for electro acoustic devices such as BAW and FBAR filters (RF MEMS) and for other piezoelectric sensor and actuator applications. The system features a unique implementation of the Tegal dual cathode S-Gun™ magnetron source specifically optimized for the most demanding film thickness uniformity, stress, and crystal orientation specifications in the PVD industry. Along with providing AlN PVD equipment under the Tegal SMT and Tegal Endeavor product families, Tegal has been supporting the AlN community by offering high quality AlN foundry services in its San Jose, CA PVD Demonstration Laboratory.