Nanometrics Incorporated,
a leading supplier of advanced process control metrology equipment, today announced
the release of its latest NanoCD Suite of solutions for optical critical dimension
(OCD) metrology. The new NanoCD Suite Version 2.0 greatly enhances the power
of OCD analysis for the most demanding process control applications.
The NanoCD Suite Version 2.0 is composed of key components enabling scalable
fab-wide OCD metrology solutions, including the NanoGen, NanoMatch, NanoStation,
and NanoDiffract. The suite offers industry-proven modeling methods, as well
as a next-generation run time engine, comprehensive offline analysis tools and
an intuitive user interface for structure definition and modeling. The NanoGen
enterprise class server includes scalable resources that can be deployed and
shared between numerous users and systems across the NanoCD Suite environment.
Each component of the NanoCD Suite is designed to take full advantage of the
inherent connectivity between Nanometrics’ wide metrology product portfolio,
including standalone Atlas XP and Atlas-M systems for wafer and reticle metrology,
as well as the IMPULSE/9010 integrated metrology product portfolio. When combined
with the NanoCD Suite, Nanometrics systems have the broadest scatterometry metrology
solution for today’s semiconductor factories.
“By continually extending our modeling and analysis performance with
innovative application methods, we enable our customers to actively control
their most critical processing steps,” commented Nagesh Avadhany, Vice
President of Applications at Nanometrics. “Additionally, demand for applications
support is growing beyond traditional CD measurements and now includes measurements
on complex structures including films, coatings, epitaxial fill and post-CMP
metal damascene structures. Many customers are applying our NanoCD technology
for measurements in every sector of the fab, including thin film, CMP, advanced
lithography and etch applications on complex 32nm and 22nm node test structures.”
Enhancements in NanoDiffract allow users to control their process based on
measurements of key parameters directly on DRAM, Flash, and SRAM cells. This
measurement capability, along with new development tools, enable process engineers
to optimize their metrology recipe and determine sensitivity even before initial
wafers are processed. This highly optimized workflow for OCD applications development
results in much faster time to results leading to rapid production deployment,
higher productivity and lower cost of ownership.