Semilab SSM announces SRP system for small and mid-tier chip and solar makers

SEMICON West 2009, SAN FRANCISCO & PITTSBURGH, USA: Semilab SSM, a division of Semilab, one of the world’s largest metrology companies, announced a new member of its NanoSRP family of metrology products.

Designed for small and mid-tier sized semiconductor and solar cell manufacturers, the SRP Express 170 is a manual system that provides density and resistivity depth profiling using spreading resistance profiling technology (SRP).

SRP technology provides a direct measurement of the resistivity and carrier density profiles of electrically active dopants –- the same electrical properties that determine device performance. To date, small and mid-tier companies have had to choose between high-end, high throughput systems designed to support multiple samples at a time or older obsolete low-end manual systems.

“The SRP Express 170 fills an important void for SRP needs. With this system manufacturers can replace their aging, manual systems or outsourced services to bring a cost-effective modern system in house,” said Nikos Jaeger, GM of Semilab SSM.

The SRP Express 170 will be priced between $200,000-300,000 depending on system configuration and options.

Semilab SSM also announced new offerings for its mercury probing products (495 and 510) to make them easier to use. Mercury probing is required for many applications such as characterizing films, like dielectrics, oxides, or epitaxial layers. SSM’s current product requires the mercury to be changed about once a week.

The new solution will extend that to three to six months reducing the amount of man power to support the product and reducing the amount of handling in a year by more than 90 percent. The company also announced a mercury changing service with upgraded tools. Semilab will handle the entire mercury handling as part of the service.

“Like SRP, mercury probing is a well established classical technique for metrology and material characterization,” said Jaeger. “The demand for the product continues. This upgrade is illustrative of our commitment to provide modern, easy to use products based on well established technologies.”

The SRP-Express 170 is available now. The enhanced mercury probes are available as beta tools and will become standard later this year.