Straatum
Launches Imprint MX3 with Multiple Advanced Sensors,
Portable
Fault Libraries and Real-time, Yield Enhancing FDC
for
Chipmakers
Upgrade
Also Improves ROI with Enhanced APC Applications,
Including
Virtual Metrology
DUBLIN
,
Ireland
Straatum Processware Ltd., the
premier supplier of real-time fault detection and classification
(FDC) software for semiconductor manufacturing, today announced
Imprint MX3, a powerful, new version of its knowledge-based system
for FDC with expanded advanced process control (APC) applications.
Powered
by Straatum’s industry-leading data-storage/retrieval and
data-visualization software and additional advanced sensors, Imprint
MX3 extends the platform’s capabilities beyond FDC. The system now
enables expanded APC applications, and is a platform for virtual
metrology, which further boosts chipmakers’ ROI.
Building
on the Imprint breakthrough success with knowledge-based FDC, the
new system processes data from multiple advanced sensorsbroadband radio-frequency
(RF) and broadband optical sensors, as if the data came from one
“super” sensor. This capability significantly heightens
sensitivity to yield-impacting excursions and drift that can affect
semiconductor tools. For example, Imprint MX3 enables gas-drift
sensitivity as low as 3 percent, compared to 10 percent with only RF
sensors.
Imprint
MX3 advances Straatum’s award-winning combination of hardware and
software to provide fabs and foundries with real-time FDC, improved
system productivity, and predictive maintenance. It also offers the
company’s unique capability of transferring fault libraries across
multiple tools or chambers running the same process, either at the
same site or between sites.
“Increasing
pressures on chipmakers to maximize equipment run time and improve
wafer yields, especially during the migration to 300mm production
and sub-100nm geometries, have transitioned FDC from a rapidly
emerging technology to an essential capability in chip making,”
said Brendan Coyle, Straatum’s chief executive officer. “With
its many upgrades, MX3 offers the industry’s most scalable,
reliable and efficient excursion detecting and classifying
technology, and gives our customers new levels of insight into
what’s happening on their fab lines.”
Coyle also said that Straatum is helping customers capitalize
on the expanded APC capabilities of Imprint MX3.
“An increasing number of our customers recognize that
Imprint MX3 offers additional cost-saving capabilities, because its
advanced sensors also enable improved process control functionality
in PM lifetime extension and virtual metrology,” he said. “All
these applications reduce the dependence on test wafers for process
monitoring and improve cost of ownership.”
Straatum is targeting Imprint MX3 at high-volume manufacturing
of logic, DRAM and flash devices, where real-time detection and
prevention of problems can result in substantial economic benefits.
MX3 is expected to be available for shipping on July 31.
Next >>
|
