Metara Drives New Advances In Inline Chemical Metrology

Sunnyvale, CA - Metara Inc. launched the SENTRY platform-the semiconductor industry's first production- worthy, automated, inline chemical metrology solution designed for real-time, non-invasive characterization of the process chemistries used to manufacture today's most advanced devices. Representing a radical departure from conventional offline, intermittent analysis techniques, the SENTRY platform delivers a powerful new metrology engine that continuously monitors the composition of critical chemistries used in advanced processes, such as copper electroplating, and detects yield-or-process-limiting contaminants. The technology brings to the process control space a critical new tool that optimizes results in key manufacturing steps and dramatically increases overall chemical process efficiency.

The SENTRY platform forms the foundation of Metara's two products: the SENTRY Chemical Composition Metrology (CCM) system to monitor bath integrity for advanced copper electroplating and cobalt processes, and the SENTRY Trace Contamination Metrology (TCM) system to maintain process bath purity by identifying and quantifying metallics and organic contaminants. Both tools are already establishing a strong foothold in multiple North American and Asian fabs, with original equipment manufacturers also turning to the technology for its productivity and yield advantages.

"Today's SENTRY roll-out marks an exciting technology breakthrough in what is arguably the last uncharted yield territory in the fab," said Metara Vice President of Sales and Marketing Randy Clegg. "In today's stringent manufacturing environment, the proactive management of complex process chemistries is being seriously challenged by the limits of offline, inconsistent chemical monitoring solutions. In fact, such solutions are now posing an unacceptable yield risk. Metara's new products are designed to remove the risk by replacing the old offline, intermittent approach with a streamlined, automated inline method that brings continuity, accuracy and precision to the measurement and monitoring of complex chemistries. We're glad to be leading the drive to deliver a production-worthy system that promises to increase production yields, enable advanced processes and help reduce overall manufacturing costs."

Managing Process Chemistry Yield in the Sub-130nm Regime
Until recently, the monitoring of wet processes was confined to manual, offline measurement techniques, such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, or indirect methods, such as after-the-fact physical and electrical measurements on test wafers. These methods are operator-intensive, invasive and inherently unreliable. In addition, they are only sensitive to certain problematic species. Moreover, with smaller geometries and new materials driving tighter tolerances, even minute changes in bath chemistry can lead to catastrophic yield losses. This threat is forcing chipmakers to seek alternative and proactive chemistry-management solutions that provide continuous analysis so that contaminants can be quickly flagged and classified before product wafers are placed at risk.

SOURCE Metara Inc.