Apr 6 2017
Ultratech, Inc. is one of the leading suppliers of lithography, laserprocessing and inspection systems. These systems are used in the fabrication of semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HBLEDs), and also atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems. On April 5, 2017, Ultratech stated that it has received several commitments for its LM7 laser melt anneal system. After the anneal system was introduced in Q416, two major semiconductor manufacturers based in North America have said that they will target use of the LM7 melt system at 7-nm and below nodes. Ultratech is planning to ship both systems before the initial half of 2017 to the customers' facilities in the United States.
The industry is facing challenges of device manufacturing at 7-nm and below. In this respect, laser melt anneal technology has caught the attention as a solution for front-, middle-, and back-end-of-line applications. Particularly, scaling at such nodes has led to an investigation of the contact structure between the first metal layer and the transistor. The focus is on the transistor device performance as well as on the issues related to the resistance at the contact. These issues are proving to be a constraining factor in the operation of the transistor, limiting overall speed and increasing drive current. A presented at the 2016 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), held in December, used Ultratech's laser melt anneal system. The paper provided data to support the anneal system's capability to bring about consistent contact scaling with transistor performance targets for the 7-nm node and beyond.
As we continue to scale to smaller nodes, contact resistance is widely acknowledged to be one of the gating issues that must be addressed. Ultratech's laser melt anneal technology addresses emerging annealing requirements for 7-nm and beyond, with applications spanning the front end where the focus is on device performance and leakage improvement, the middle-of-line for contact resistance, and at the back-end-of-line where the focus is on material modifications and reduction of resistive capacitive (RC) delay. Over the last few years, Ultratech has been engaged with multiple customers on all of these applications, running wafers at our facility using our laser melt anneal technology. We look forward to working with these two customers and to providing our laser melt technology to meet their aggressive technology roadmaps.
Yun Wang, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Technologist, Laser Processing at Ultratech.
Ultratech LM7 Laser Melt Annealing System
The production-proven LSA201 laser spike anneal platform with ambient control forms the basis for the LM7 laser melt annealing system. By using this successful software/ hardware platform, the LM7 offers a new solution for melt annealing applications for 7-nm and below nodes. A unique dual-laser process is used by the LM7 to provide nanosecond-scale melt anneal together with reduced pattern effects as compared to traditional melt anneal techniques. Ultratech's LM7 laser melt anneal system offers a low cost-of-ownership solution for enhanced annealing requirements for high-volume manufacturing at 7-nm and below nodes.