CAPRES A/S, a Danish developer of next-generation semiconductor metrology systems for the direct nano- and micro-scale electrical characterization of materials, today announced the first shipment of its fully automated 300mm microRSP-A300 to an industry leading foundry located in Asia.
microRSP-A300
With the development and production release of the microRSP-A300, CAPRES has addressed the challenges associated with in-line measurement on production wafers, thereby reducing reliance on data extrapolation and costly monitor wafers to validate doping levels.
The tool is currently being installed and is scheduled to be qualified for production during the second quarter of 2010. The initial application of the tool will be to monitor sheet resistance of very thin films on product wafers. This production application of micro-scale sheet resistivity measurement allows, for the first time, immediate detection of process deviations thereby shortening the production control loop and enabling a commensurate reduction in work-in-process and losses due to out-of-specification production processes.
"A number of companies, including this new customer, are finding that conventional Rs and optical metrology tools are not capable of measuring the sheet resistance of the very thin conductive films needed for production processes beyond the 40nm node. We were selected after several rounds of blind benchmarks that proved our accuracy and repeatability on product wafers," said Bo Hansen, CEO of CAPRES A/S.
Source: http://www.capres.com