Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: RTEC), a worldwide leader in process characterization solutions for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, announced today that Touch Micro-System Tech (tMt), a major manufacturer of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) located in Taiwan, has reported a substantial reduction in per-wafer inspection time using Rudolph's NSX® Inspection System and Discover® Data Analysis software. Discover, which is the NSX's automated data analysis program, allows the user to rapidly identify, classify, sort and diagnose defect causes.
“The success of this effort reflects a growing market segment among MEMS manufacturers seeking to reduce defects and improve manufacturing yields as they bring numerous new applications into high-volume production,” said Rajiv Roy, Rudolph's vice president of business development and director of back-end marketing.
“Automated macro defect inspection with the NSX System is a key component of our strategic plan to improve the yield of our manufacturing processes and ensure the quality of our products,” said C. S. Yang, project manager, CEO Office at tMt. “We have dramatically reduced our per-wafer inspection time with the automated NSX System. Although we use processes similar to those found in semiconductor manufacturing, we face many unique challenges, such as complex patterns and extreme topography. In this regard, the tool's ability to automatically classify defects is extremely valuable.”
Roy added, “While some MEMS applications are well established, such as vehicle accelerometers and print heads, a host of exciting new applications are in development and promise explosive growth in the MEMS industry. A few examples are micro projectors and orientation detectors for cell phones. We believe that automated macro defect inspection will be a critical enabling technology as manufacturers move these new applications into high-volume production. This order clearly demonstrates the value tMt sees in the unique capabilities of the NSX Inspection System and Discover Data Analysis software.”
Rudolph's NSX automated macro defect inspection tool uses image-based optical inspection technology to detect defects occurring in microelectronics manufacturing processes. It offers significant improvements in speed, accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility when compared to manual inspection procedures. Discover Data Analysis software automatically classifies detected defects based on operator defined characteristics, allowing the user to quickly direct appropriate attention to those defects with the greatest impact on process yield.