Tegal Corporation, (Nasdaq:
TGAL) an innovator of specialized production solutions for the fabrication
of advanced MEMS, power ICs and optoelectronic devices, today launched ProNova™,
the company's third-generation high-density Inductively Coupled Plasma
(ICP) reactor for Tegal DRIE Series Wafer Processing Products. Targeted for
fast-growing MEMS and 3D IC applications, delivery of the ProNova has already
begun, with the first order going to a new Tegal customer in the EU (see related
announcement).
Separately today, Tegal also announced the ProNova User Group, a global network
of ProNova DRIE process demonstration sites in Europe, North America, and Japan.
Advanced characterization work and customer process demonstrations are already
being carried out in the greatly expanded process window opened by ProNova.
Tegal's new DRIE reactor arrives on the market just as the focus of MEMS
foundries and MEMS device makers turns increasingly to 200mm fabrication. During
the recent Extreme MEMS program at SEMICON West 2009, Yole Developpement, a
leading market research firm reporting on MEMS business and technical activities,
clearly identified trends in 200mm MEMS device fabrication. According to Yole,
MEMS fabrication on 200mm wafers will grow more than 2.6 times over the period
2009 &ndash 2012. Drivers for 200mm MEMS growth include the significant
yield and cost advantages inherent in 200mm processing, along with the added
benefit of being able to perform CMOS, MEMS, and heterogeneous integration processing
with advanced 200mm tool sets. A key challenge for 200mm MEMS fabrication is
porting established MEMS processes onto 200mm tools and then improving on the
baseline process results; for silicon DRIE, these challenges include achieving
higher etch rates, tighter control of tilt angles and etch profiles across 200mm
wafers, and tighter control of etch depth uniformity across 200mm wafers.
The Tegal ProNova™, Tegal's third-generation high-density ICP reactor,
was developed to address each of the key market requirements identified by the
200mm MEMS community. As a result of improved ICP reactor geometry and plasma
source design, ProNova, when compared to standard ICP sources, achieves superior
etch depth uniformity, etch profiles, and etch tilt angles across 200mm wafers.
Additionally, the larger process window created by expanding the effective operating
ranges of the plasma source and diffusion chambers results in higher etching
rates overall, a key enabler for DRIE tool productivity.
“The attention right now in MEMS production and 3D IC packaging is squarely
on 200mm applications,” said Paul Werbaneth, Vice President of Marketing
and Applications at Tegal. “ProNova, our third generation DRIE ICP source,
offers significant advantages over standard ICP sources on larger diameter wafers,
with the end results being better productivity and higher yields on 200mm wafers
for MEMS and 3D IC customers.”
The ProNova ICP source is available immediately to ship on Tegal 110, 200,
3200, and 4200 DRIE Wafer Processing Systems. ProNova is also compatible as
a retrofit with Tegal and AMMS DRIE systems already in the field, and ProNova
supports SHARP &ndash Tegal's Super High Aspect Ratio Process, achieving
etched feature aspect ratios of > 100:1 in production environments.
In support of the ProNova launch, Tegal is exhibiting at Micromachine/MEMS
2009, Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan from Wednesday 29 July 2009 through Friday
31 July 2009. Please look for Tegal and ProNova at the Canon Marketing Japan
Booth, East Hall, Booth H-05.