ACM Research has developed the new Ultra C VI single wafer tool, the company announced on Wednesday.
The latest addition to the company’s Ultra C leaning system, boasts 18 cleaning chambers. This is six more champers than the Ultra C V system and 50 percent expansion on throughput.
ACM has also optimized the drying efficiency in the champers. Large-sized, high aspect semiconductor wafers can be dried and cleaned using isopropyl alcohol (IPA).
“Although memory devices are increasing in complexity, they still have the same high throughput requirements,” said ACM’s President and CEO Dr David Wang, in a statement.
“Additional cleaning chambers enable memory device makers to support extra processing steps and more sophisticated drying technology, while maintaining or reducing production cycle time. We see an 18-chamber configuration as the sweet spot for this application. Compared to systems with higher chamber counts, the Ultra C VI provides a better balance for wafer-per-hour requirements and factory-automation matching,” Wang added,
The Ultra C VI performs single-wafer cleaning for advanced DRAM devices of 1y nm and beyond, as well as advanced 3D NAND devices with 128 stacked layers and above, ACM said.
It can be used for a variety of front-end-of-line (FEOL) and back-end-of-line (BEOL) processes depending on the application and the chemistry involved, such as BEOL polymer removal, tungsten- or copper-loop post-cleans, pre-deposition cleans, post-etch and post-chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) cleaning, deep-trench/via cleans, and RCA standard cleans, it said.
The company will be supplying the equipment to a major memory semiconductor company in the third quarter, it added.
