Challenges in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Today’s semiconductor processes face extreme reliability and yield expectations. For the lithography processes and in processes that involve high temperatures and/or reactive chemicals, fused quartz is a key material.
You need to assure that the purity of the process and equipment availability is up to your expectations.
More information on challenges in optical applications

Heraeus supports you in finding the optimized design and material as well as the fabrication for your product.

The challenges faced in modern deposition processes are uniformity of layers, temperature and gas flow. The need to avoid particle generation and process contamination to achieve high process yields is also of paramount importance.

• Challenges of uniformity:
  To address the challenges of uniformity within process it is crucial to control temperature and gas flow.
  Gas flow is controlled by tubes with tight dimensional tolerances and optimized design of the quartzware. For improved thermal management Heraeus offers a unique opaque material solution.
  More information on optimized design of the quartzware
  More information on unique opaque material solution
  
• Challenges of particle generation and process contamination:
  A primary cause of particle generation in plasma-supported deposition processes is linked to the bubble content of the quartz base material. Heraeus has developed a wide portfolio of low bubble content material helping to address this challenge.
  Impurities within the quartzware have become a growing concern due to shrinking node sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. Heraeus manufactures high purity and synthetic quartz materials and fabricated solutions.
  More information on synthetic material grades

Time between services impacts the uptime of your etching and ashing tools. A primary cause for tool down maintenance is particle levels exceeding predefined thresholds.

Bubbles within the quartzware contribute to particle generation in plasma etching processes. This is a growing concern as node sizes shrink driving smaller acceptable particle sizes and counts.
Heraeus has focused on developing cost effective low bubble materials to specifically address this challenge.
More information on low bubble materials