ALD - Enabling the Future Industries Picosun News, Summer 2014

In this issue:

• Industrial scale batch processes for oxides, nitrides, and metals with fully automatic loading solutions from Picosun • Picosun ALD technology realizes future energy storage • Novel catalyst materials for a sustainable European chemical industry enabled with Picosun ALD solutions • Picosun partners in new territories in Southeast Asia and Middle East • Customer interviews: o Dr. Yuichi Harada, NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan o Mr. David Grange, Institute of Applied Microtechnologies, HE-Arc, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland

Industrial scale batch processes for oxides, nitrides, and metals with fully automatic loading solutions from Picosun Picosun’s portfolio of industrial scale batch ALD processes for the growing market of IC (Integrated Circuits), MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems), LEDs (LightEmitting Diodes), and protective coatings, e.g. for watch and minting industries now covers oxides, nitrides, and pure metals with a large selection of fully automatic loading options integratable with PICOSUN™ production ALD tools. Picosun’s batch processes provide world leading film quality, both in terms of thickness uniformity and purity. Fast and clean processes lead to lower production costs and larger yields, which is why several prominent production customers around the world have chosen Picosun as their equipment provider. The same cutting-edge level of processing has now been extended to nitrides as well, with Picosun’s recently launched titanium nitride (TiN) batch process for 200 mm wafers. Pure metal ALD films are also crucial in modern IC applications as conductive layer and seed layers. Picosun now offers ruthenium (Ru) batch processing for these applications, utilizing new process chemistry to achieve 13 wafers (300 mm) or 27 wafers (200 mm) per run. The production compatible solutions for high volume ALD manufacturing require fully automatic substrate handling systems. In addition to vacuum robot sample handling units or cassette-to-cassette loaders, Picosun’s automation solutions now also include atmospheric systems based on industrial robotics. Options such as linear inline loader and robot loader are especially well suited to customers who process three dimensional macroscopic non-IC samples such as coins, watch parts, mechanical industry parts, or jewelry items in large batches, though naturally also large batches of silicon wafers or glass sheets can be easily handled with a robot.

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Customer data of Al2O3 batch process in a PICOSUN™ P-300B batch ALD tool, showing the leading process purity particle level –wise.  

Target

Measured

Thickness non-uniformity in-wafer

< 1 % 1σ

Max. 0.51 % 1σ

Thickness non-uniformity in-batch

< 1 % 1σ

0.80 % 1σ

Deposition rate variation batch-to-batch

< 1 % 1σ

0.18 % 1σ

Added particles/wafer (>70 nm) Alkali contamination