Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies and Tokyo Electron intensify cooperation

(Nanowerk News) Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) and Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) announce to intensify its cooperation. The institute acquired an automatic TEL wafer prober in order to meet the requirements of latest measuring tasks related to capacity, quality and positioning accuracy within a large temperature range. Moreover future wafer test and characterization requirements will be developed and verified by means of an additional system. This collaboration is based on a separate evaluation agreement, which was concluded by Fraunhofer CNT and TEL.
Due to the fully automated prober it is possible to perform functional tests and parameter measurements of integrated circuits and components on wafer, e. g. to detect defective chips at an early stage or to monitor the specification of integrated transistors.
Thus 300 mm wafer – which is the wafer size that the research activities of Fraunhofer CNT are mainly focused on – as well as 200 mm wafer and wafer fragments can be characterized and a broad range of test and characterization tasks can be covered. The major difficulty with wafer tests is the contacting of very small pads. Future chip generations are targeted to have smaller contact pads since the chip surface of integrated circuits constitutes a considerable expense factor and a new arrangement of contacts and test pads becomes necessary in the course of 3-dimensional (3D) integrated circuits.
"The aim of our research activities with TEL is to improve the contact accuracy for small pads within a large temperature range. For this purpose one wafer prober was equipped for the temperature range from -55°C to 200°C, thus enabling also reliability characterization for Automotive devices. ", says Dr. Volkhard Beyer, group manager of the competence area Device & Integration at Fraunhofer CNT. "We are looking forward to the collaboration with TEL and we are confident that we will achieve successful research results."
About Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies
Fraunhofer CNT, which was opened on 31st May 2005, is an example of the close cooperation between research and manufacturing for which Dresden offers excellent conditions. Due to its advantageous location within the "Silicon Saxony", it provides ideal collaboration opportunities for research institutes and material/equipment manufacturers in the field of nanoelectronics. Within the former premises of Qimonda there is a clean room area (clean room class 1000) of about 800 m² available for the research of Fraunhofer CNT as well as an infrastructure which meets industry standard. The main focus is on the development of special process steps for the manufacturing of high-density memory chips as well as high-performance transistors. Furthermore Fraunhofer CNT works on the development of new analytic and metrology methods and on the analysis of wafer processing results for which considerable laboratories are available.
About Tokyo Electron Group (TEL)
Tokyo Electron (TEL), established in 1963, is a leading supplier of innovative semiconductor and FPD production equipment worldwide. In Japan, TEL also distributes computer network related products and electronic components of global leading suppliers. To support this diverse product base, TEL is strategically located around the world. TEL is a publicly held company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Source: Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies