ASM International books repeat orders for plasma enhanced ALD systems

ALMERE, THE NETHERLANDS: ASM International N.V. has received multiple repeat orders this year for its plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) systems from a leading memory customer in Asia for volume manufacturing at multiple fab lines.

All systems will be used for dielectrics in double patterning applications for advanced lithography at the 3X technology node and below.

Additionally, ASM is expanding developments for PEALD dielectrics for logic transistor gate protection applications at the 22 nm node. As part of this development program, PEALD tools have been delivered to multiple advanced logic customers.

"PEALD is increasingly being adopted due to its ability to control deposition one atomic layer at a time on a wide range of device structures," said Tominori Yoshida, General Manager of ASM's Plasma Products product group. "We have made very good progress in developing PEALD as an enabling technology for new dielectrics applications. Our patent position in PEALD should enable us to fully benefit from the broad range of new applications in the challenging 2X and 1X nodes."

The PEALD reactors are optimized to deposit dielectrics including SiO, SiN and SiCN. A major advantage of ASM's PEALD process is its ability to deliver conformal thin films at low temperatures, which is especially beneficial for double patterning lithography technologies where thin dielectrics are deposited over temperature sensitive photoresists for critical dimension control and pitch reduction.

Each one of the systems ordered includes multiple PEALD reactors implemented on ASM's Eagle XP platform, the company's production-proven standard platform that can be configured with plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), Thermal ALD or PEALD reactors.