Jan 22 2009
Air Liquide Electronics is proud to announce a major capacity expansion of TORUS™ manufacturing at its ALOHA TM facility in Fremont, California. This expansion will enable Air Liquide to support the increase in demand for this precursor as it moves into mass production at device manufacturers. First of its class, TORUS ™ provides a high quality and cost- effective solution for deposition of ruthenium-based thin films in high volume manufacturing applications.
Ruthenium is a noble metal that has been considered for many years as an electrode material in DRAM capacitors. It has been deemed mandatory to enable further device scaling and integration of the future generations of high-k materials. Ruthenium is also used in Giant Magneto-resistive (GMR) and Tunneling Magneto-resistive (TMR) sensors in advanced hard drives. So far, most attempts to use ruthenium based organo-metallic precursors have been hampered, among other things, by the imperfect surface coverage of ultra thin films, and by the price of conventional ruthenium precursors, thereby making the cost of the metallization step unacceptably high. In this respect, TORUS™ offers a true innovation. It provides an ideal technical solution to ruthenium metallization challenges at the lowest cost of ownership.
TORUS™ is based on a carefully tuned proprietary formulation containing an inorganic ruthenium compound. Its high surface reactivity results in high precursor efficiency which allows for low cost per wafer. This exceptional process performance has been demonstrated by Seoul National University. Its upcoming publication* will illustrate that highly pure Ruthenium films with low resistivity, small grain size, perfect step coverage, and superior thermal stability, can be obtained with TORUS™. ALOHA TM, Air Liquide's product line for ALD and CVD materials, has released several TORUS™ proprietary formulations, customized for different applications and delivery methods.
"I am very pleased to see this product moving into mass production," said Francisco Martins, Air Liquide Group vice president of Electronics. "After the adoption of ZyALD TM, our proprietary ZrO2 high-k precursor, by several leading IDMs and foundries, the ramp up of TORUS TM confirms ALOHA's position as an enabling partner to our customers and to the whole electronics industry. We will continue to be fully committed to leading-edge R&D and the launch of revolutionary materials driven by the evolution of this innovativeindustry."
* Author(s): Han, Jeong Hwan; Lee, Sang Woon; Choi, Gyu Jin; Lee, Sang Young; Hwang, Cheol Seong; Dussarrat, Christian; Gatineau, Julien. To be published in Chemistry of Materials.