sp3 Diamond Technologies,
Inc. (sp3), a leading supplier of diamond products, equipment and services,
today introduced its newest hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond
reactor, the Model 665.
The new dual-chamber system can accommodate up to eighteen 100 mm-diameter
substrates at a time, representing a 100 percent increase in deposition area
over the company’s single chamber model. The Model 665 significantly reduces
cost of ownership (COO) by doubling system throughput while delivering the identical
CVD diamond film characteristics, deposition rate and process uniformity as
the company’s single-chamber reactor.
Customer demand for efficient, lower COO platforms for volume production drove
development of the higher throughput system. Key markets that are rapidly moving
towards full commercialization include chemical mechanical planarization (CMP)
pad conditioners and diamond-coated electrodes for water treatment. The Model
665 will serve as a platform for the development of even higher volume deposition
equipment targeting the use of diamond interlayers on semiconductor wafers.
“CVD diamond films are moving into full commercialization,” said
Dwain Aidala, president and COO of sp3 Diamond Technologies. “Scale and
throughput are now critical as the inherent benefits of diamond have become
well-recognized, moving it from the R&D and pilot production stage into
volume manufacturing in some high growth areas. With multiple customers ramping
manufacturing of products incorporating CVD diamond, our ability to deliver
a high productivity deposition platform is a truly unique offering in the marketplace.”
CVD diamond is an ideal material for CMP pad conditioners due to its wear characteristics,
chemical inertness and range of abrasive characteristics. CMP use is escalating
in semiconductor manufacturing in terms of the number of process steps using
CMP, the increasing number of metallization layers and the number of materials
being polished. These factors are driving the requirement for CVD diamond-based
conditioning that delivers finer line widths and compatibility with the increasing
complexity of slurries and pad textures.
Another market that has seen rapid growth in the adoption of CVD diamond is
diamond-coated electrodes for water treatment. Increasingly, these electrodes
are being implemented in industrial water treatment facilities and filtration
systems where diamond’s chemical inertness and ability to be selectively
doped enable long life, high reliability systems.
About the Model 665
The Model 665’s new dual chamber configuration delivers the same features
and benefits of sp3’s current, proven reactors, including: excellent diamond
thickness uniformity, high throughput, exceptional process repeatability, precise
process control and low cost operation. The Model 665 costs less than 40 percent
more than the Model 650 system while doubling the throughput, significantly
decreasing COO.
The two deposition chambers in the Model 665 always run the same process, with
the process controller and associated electronics, gas distribution system and
pressure (vacuum) control system simultaneously serving the two chambers for
diamond deposition. The gas and vacuum plumbing have been designed to accurately
balance pressure and gas flow between the chambers, allowing exact replication
of deposition processes in each chamber. The new dual chamber system uses existing
deposition recipes, with only minor pump down/cool down step-time modifications.
Operation of the dual chamber configuration is identical to that of the Model
650 series except that two chambers are loaded and unloaded for deposition instead
of a single chamber and the user interface displays two chambers. All of the
process controls – gas control, pressure control, process recipe creation
and operation, etc. – are the same, as are the safety features and data
logging capabilities.
sp3 Diamond Technologies provides CVD deposition reactors and diamond-based
solutions for electronics thermal management and enhanced cutting surfaces to
companies worldwide, across a broad spectrum of industries. By supplying wafer-scale
diamond-on-substrate products and services utilizing nano and microcrystalline
diamond morphology, sp3 is expanding the commercial reach of polycrystalline
CVD diamond.
sp3 understands diamond and manufacturing equipment, as well as the cost, reliability
and quality needs of its customers. In addition to running its own CVD diamond
manufacturing facilities, sp3 is unique in selling its hot filament CVD reactors
so customers can manufacture their own CVD diamond in-house.
Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA, sp3 Diamond
Technologies is a subsidiary of sp3 Inc., a privately-owned , full service provider
of products and services relating to thin-film diamond deposition and thick-film
polycrystalline diamond materials. sp3 Inc. and its operational units have deposited
diamond on over one and a half million cutting tools and completed more than
18,000 successful diamond deposition runs.