Mattson Technology selected by leading global chipmaker for joint development of advanced millisecond annealing applications
(Business News, 23 Jul 2007 )
Mattson Technology, a leading supplier of advanced process equipment used to manufacture semiconductors, today announced that a leading global semiconductor manufacturer selected its Millios flash rapid thermal processing (fRTP) system to develop advanced millisecond annealing applications for current and future technology nodes. The system is expected to ship to the chipmaker’s 300 millimeter (mm) fab later this year.
In the nanotechnology era, where chips have features 1000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, advanced RTP applications will require annealing that is fractions of, to a few thousandths of, a second in duration. Mattson’s Millios fRTP system features a patented arc lamp technology that processes the wafers through millisecond “flashes” (similar to a camera flash), providing improved thermal control for ultra-shallow junction (USJ) anneal and other advanced applications through the 22 nm regime. Millios also combines fully automated wafer handling hardware and software from Mattson’s production-proven Helios RTP system.
“Millios was designed for next-generation device technologies, and it has already demonstrated the advanced capabilities to address critical sub-45 nanometer applications at semiconductor and nanoelectronics research centers CNT and SEMATECH,” said David L. Dutton, Mattson Technology’s chief executive officer. “This selection by one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers validates the system’s ability to enable the advanced technology required to help chipmakers achieve increasingly smaller geometries and fabricate more powerful chips. We look forward to working with this latest Millios customer to develop enabling processes for the next generation of IC manufacturing.”
According to Gartner Dataquest, the emerging millisecond anneal market is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24% from 2007 to 2011, reaching an expected total available market (TAM) of $181.7 million by 2011.
