Today KLA-Tencor Corporation
(NASDAQ:KLAC), the world's leading supplier of process control and yield
management solutions for the semiconductor and related industries, extended
its product offerings in the CMOS image sensor (CIS) market by announcing the
8900 defect inspection system. KLA-Tencor's new 8900 offers selectable illumination
wavelengths, color-matched to CIS pixels; simultaneous brightfield and darkfield
optical channels to enable capture of a wide variety of defect types; and adjustable
sensitivity and throughput settings for cost-effective defect management from
initial product development through volume production of color filter arrays
(CFA).
KLA-Tencor's new 8900 high speed patterned-wafer defect inspection system represents a single-tool solution for image-sensor color filter and microlens development and production applications. (Photo: Business Wire)
Image sensors are devices that convert light into electrical signal, for use
primarily in cameras. A color filter allows each pixel of the sensor to respond
to a specific color—typically red, green or blue (RGB). The CFA is constructed
in single-color, patterned layers, with one filter on top of each sensor pixel.
Each pixel is capped with a micro-lens. As yield-limiting defects can occur
at any step in the assembly process, the 8900's ability to inspect any of the
filter or micro-lens layers can help reduce materials waste and cycle time.
An 8900 defect inspection system was recently installed at the first 300mm
advanced CFA fab of Toppan Printing Company, Ltd., an industry leader in color
filters. “State-of-the-art defect control is important to our ability
to provide advanced color filters reliably,” said Keiichi Hara, Chief
Manager, On-chip Color Filter Department, Kumamoto Plant of Toppan Electronics
Products Co., Ltd. “The 8900 has improved our defect control capability
and changed our strategy. Because the 8900 is sensitive to a wide range of defect
types and has high throughput, it is performing all the defect inspections in
the CFA process. This previously required multiple inspection tools. The 8900
can also automate the defect monitoring tasks that used to require manual inspection,
making our cycle times shorter and more predictable.”
“Image sensor fabs have been using a combination of defect inspection
systems, including manual inspection, to cover CFA process development, line
monitoring, and incoming and outgoing quality control,” remarked Oreste
Donzella, Vice President and General Manager of the SWIFT division at KLA-Tencor.
“This strategy can lead to errors and inefficiencies. For example, manual
inspection results have high variability. Even with automated systems, critical
defect excursions can be missed because the results are difficult to compare
among different systems. In developing the 8900, we leveraged KLA-Tencor's
extensive experience in brightfield and darkfield micro and macro inspection
to provide image sensor fabs with a single, flexible system to address the breadth
of their CFA inspection requirements. We believe that the 8900 will allow fabs
to improve resource allocation, increase the yield of their current products
and accelerate delivery of their latest image sensors.”
Key features of the 8900 defect inspection system include:
- Simultaneous brightfield and darkfield optical paths to capture a wide range
of defect types in a single pass, such as micro-lens deformation; resist and
fall-on defects; color contamination; large stains and striations;
- Selectable LED inspection and review illumination spectrum matched to CIS
filter colors;
- Sensitivity consistent with requirements of advanced CIS roadmaps;
- Throughput above 110 wafers per hour at production sensitivity, for 300mm
semiconductor wafers;
- Automated binning of defects by type;
- Automated sensor pass/fail dispositioning; and
- Automated color review for defect verification.
For more technical details about the 8900, please visit the product webpage:
http://www.kla-tencor.com/patterned-wafer/8900.html.