Applied Materials, Inc. today
broadened its portfolio of advanced patterning solutions with the
launch of its Applied Producer® ACE™
SACVD®(1) system. Helping customers extend 193nm lithography
using self-aligned double patterning (SADP) schemes,
Applied’s ACE system delivers a highly conformal oxide spacer
film with >95% step coverage, <5% pattern loading and
<1% non-uniformity, enabling state-of-the-art critical dimension
control. Combined with a benchmark throughput of >80 wafers per
hour and a low thermal budget, the ACE system offers the
industry’s most productive and extendible spacer solution for
SADP at the 32nm node and beyond.
“Lithography is struggling to keep pace with the
demand for higher memory storage densities; SADP technology enables a
doubling of pattern densities using current litho schemes, making it
the preferred solution for 32nm and beyond,” said Hichem
M’Saad, vice president and general manager of Applied
Materials’ Dielectric Systems and CMP Business Group.
“The proprietary Producer ACE technology delivers a film of
unmatched step coverage and uniformity that is compatible with
patterning films such as Applied’s industry leading
APF™ carbon hardmask, to achieve the industry’s
most advanced 22nm line/space arrays.”
Spacer films play a key role in fabricating advanced memory
cells using SADP schemes. Deposited on top of a sacrificial APF
line/space array, the ACE spacer film becomes a hard mask that creates
half-pitch features in a second APF layer below.
The performance of Applied’s ACE technology has been
validated at Applied’s Maydan Technology Center. An advanced
TANOS flash memory structure was fabricated using an advanced SADP
technique. The structure was successfully optimized using
Applied’s Producer CVD, Centura®
AdvantEdge™ G3 Etch and VeritySEM™ Metrology
systems. This advanced learning can assist customers in reducing
development time and cost for implementing double patterning technology
in their next generation devices.
The Twin Chamber™ architecture of
Applied’s very successful Producer GT™ platform
offers the industry’s highest throughput density.
Applied’s Producer CVD systems are being used by every major
chip manufacturer, with more than 1,500 systems shipped worldwide. The
Producer system has established Applied’s technology
leadership in all advanced CVD chipmaking applications, including
low-k, strain engineering, litho-enabling films, thermal films and high
temperature PECVD(2).
(1) SACVD=sub-atmospheric chemical vapor
deposition
(2) PECVD=plasma enhanced chemical vapor
deposition