Technology Overview
Process chemistry has long been one of the least-controlled yield challenges
in the fab. With challenges that include advanced processes featuring
smaller design geometries and lower contamination tolerances; new materials
that make chemical processes difficult to manage; shrinking process windows;
increased yield risk from systematic process interactions; and larger wafers
that put more revenue at risk — process chemistry stands apart as one
of the few remaining uncharted yield management territories.
Today’s approaches fall short of addressing the accurate, real-time
and comprehensive chemistry analysis and control requirements of today’s
complex processing environments. Thus, production-worthy inline chemical
metrology, that enables real-time, comprehensive measurement and control
of advanced chemical processes on the fab line, is now critical to the
success of advanced production processes.
Metara has developed a fundamentally new approach to this challenge via
its innovative inline chemical metrology solutions. The company’s
Inline Mass Spectrometer (ILMS), based on electrospray time-of-flight mass
spectrometry, is the industry’s first production-worthy, inline chemical
metrology solution that provides the precision, speed and resolution needed
to accurately determine chemical composition and detect potential yield-or
process-limiting contaminants. By effectively bringing the power
of the lab to the fab floor, Metara is helping chipmakers increase production
yields, enable advanced processes and lower their overall manufacturing
costs.
Metara’s technology is implemented on the SENTRY platform, from
which emerge the company’s two product lines: the trace contamination
metrology (TCM) and chemical composition metrology (CCM) systems. The
prime competitive advantage of both products is their ability to provide
routine measurement and analysis in minutes rather than several days, as
was traditionally required when using a standard analytical laboratory
with highly trained scientists. This capability empowers fabs to
make proactive process-control decisions vs. reactively adjusting process
recipes, and gives new insight into process-chemistry reactions.
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