Applied Materials has developed new innovative systems to improve its new series of Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips’ performance. These systems such as the Applied Endura HAR Cobalt PVD system, the Applied Endura Versa XLR W PVD system, and the Applied Centura DPN HD system enhance the design of transistor and memory chips’ contact areas.
The Applied Centura DPN HD system improves transistor performance by embedding nitrogen atoms into the gate insulator to enhance its electrical properties. The new high-dose (HD) method improves Applied's original decoupled plasma nitridation (DPN) technology that is used in the production of memory devices and advanced logic. This favors chipmakers to reduce transistor dimensions with better performance.
The Applied Endura Versa XLR W PVD system uses Applied's standard tungsten physical vapor deposition (PVD) technology to decrease stack resistivity of gate by nearly 20%. This improves switching speed necessary for gate scaling. Its advanced reactor design considerably increases the life span of vital consumable parts, decreasing cost-per-wafer by 10%.
For transistor contact metallization, the new Applied Endura Cobalt PVD system replaces the usual titanium with less-resistivity cobalt, in order to provide a production-guarantee method to improve switching speed and reduce power-consumption. The system enhances Applied's knowledge in cobalt PVD that is applied to deposit consistent films in high aspect-ratio contact structures, enabling lowering of contact resistance by 50% compared to that of titanium.
In order to reduce the performance between DRAM chips and microprocessors, DRAM chipmakers utilized better transistor technologies from improved logic devices to enlarge density of transistor, enabling the development of quicker and more refined control circuitry.