Imec CEO Sees Core 450mm Process R&D by 2015
By David Lammers
The Imec research consortium expects to move to 450mm wafers for “selected module” process development by 2015, including patterning and gate formation, Imec CEO Luc Van den hove told reporters at the center’s Leuven, Belgium headquarters.
Luc Van den hove
“By 2015 we expect the key (450mm) tools to become available,” he said. Van den hove said he could not comment on when he expects a 450mm scanner to become available from ASML or any other vendor. “I could not imagine that the key tools would become available before 2015,” he answered in response to questions regarding when a 450mm EUV scanner will become available.
While the current EUV optics can be extended to a 450mm scanner, it will take a major development effort to maintain the stability of the larger wafers and reticles. “The g-forces (on the wafer stage) are much higher, which will worsen the stability challenge,” said Ven den hove, who earlier ran the consortium’s core lithography program.
Imec has built an extension to its 300mm clean room that is capable of handling the 450mm tools. Van den hove said Imec will continue to do its core CMOS process development on 300mm wafers until 2015 “or a few years longer.” It expects to begin partial CMOS processing on 450mm wafers beginning in 2015, and plans to build a major addition to its existing 300mm clean room to essentially double the available cleanroom space, so that both 300mm wafers and 450mm wafers can run through a full CMOS process line. Construction of the fab expansion would have to begin in the next couple of years to be ready for the 2015 target date.
Imec will expand its newest clean room space (upper right building) to accomodate a 450mm process line.
“It makes no sense to do all of our research too early on 450mm tools, because that would be too costly. And tool testing is not our core competency,” Van den hove told the reporters. He said early work, for example, will enable the epitaxial deposition steps required to add stressors to transistors built on 450mm wafers.
Over its 27-year history, Imec has had a long and close relationship with lithography vendor ASML, located north of Imec in Veldhoven, Netherlands. At the press event here Monday (Oct. 10), Imec and ASML announced a five-year extension to their existing cooperative research work.
Imec installed ASML’s NXE:3100 pre-production EUV scanner this spring. On Monday, Imec announced that it will install ASML’s NXE:3300B tool, a production-level scanner. Van den hove told SemiMD that he expects the 3300B tool to be installed by early 2013.
ASML will install its state-of-the-art 193nm immersion litho tool, the NXT1950i system, at Imec by this November, which will support research in double and quad-patterning required to backup and complement EUV.
Van den hove said the engineering resources required to boost the EUV source power have gone up sharply, adding that an earlier development effort was required to improve the excimer lasers used in today’s 193nm scanners. “Today those excimer lasers are among the most reliable components of a CMOS processing line. But when we started, their up-time was terrible.”
Also, Imec and ASML will work together computational lithography tools and the metrology platform, the ASML Yieldstar S200.
At the press event, the head of Imec’s “CMORE” program, Stephane Donnay, said Imec and ASML have co-developed a set of sensors which can be used to align the reticle and wafer, and to measure the EUV energy dose.
The sensors will be integrated on ASML’s NXE:3300 EUV platform, he said.
“The dose sensor can withstand the high-energy EUV radiation,” Donnay said. “We are very proud that we can make a small contribution to our long-time partner, ASML, in making an EUV scanner with better performance.”
Imec uses its 200mm fab to codevelop MEMS, sensors, and other “More than Moore” products. The CMORE program works differently than the consortium’s core CMOS program, which focuses on the process modules required to advance CMOS scaling. With the CMORE program, Imec works on product development with a single partner, Donnay said. Five such co-development sensor efforts are underway, but he said he could only identify the joint work with ASML at this point.
“This is the first qualified CMORE product integrated in a customer’s product,” Donnay said.
Imec has nearly 2000 people working on a broad range of programs, including about 400 assignees from its program member companies. It has an annual budget of about 300 million Euros.
Recently, the state of New York said it will support establishment of the Global 450 Consortium, which is expected to have a 450mm process line ready by early 2013, though it remains an open question whether a full 450mm toolset will be available by then. G450C expects to begin its early 2013 patterning with a specially-designed imprint scanner capable of 450mm wafer handling. The imprint tool will be complemented with a 450mm-capable immersion 193 scanner by late 2013, according to Intel Corp.
Tags: 450mm, EUV lithography, Imec