SVG Litho Tool Spans Generations

Electronic News, May 8, 2000 by Jeff Chappell

Some tool makers may be leery about developing tools in anticipation of widespread 193-nanometer lithography, knowing how the industry can waffle over adopting new technology, but Silicon Valley Group Inc. (SVG) isn't one of those companies.

Last Thursday the San Jose-based capital equipment company, which has been a leader in developing 193nm and 157nm lithography technology, rolled out a version of its Micrascan lithography platform that can produce critical and noncritical lithography on 200mm or 300mm at 248nm, 193nm, and 157nm wavelengths. The platform converts from 200mm to 300mm with a single shift conversion, SVG said.

The company's lithography division also rolled out its 157nm miniscanner, a smaller scale tool to be used for the development of 157nm lithography technology. The miniscanner announcement came somewhat ahead of schedule; last July at Semicon West SVG said it would not have it ready until the third quarter of this year. At that time the company also said it would have a "full-field" 157nm development tool ready by the end of 2001.

SVG called the new platform roll out "a major strategic move which supports the company's goal of providing the broadest spectrum of high-performance, high-productivity lithography products to ASIC, DRAM, and logic customers worldwide." It cited recent sales to Conexant Systems Inc., Cypress Semiconductor Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., International Sematech, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and "the world's leading microprocessor manufacturer."

SVG said that at 67 square feet the new platform has the smallest footprint of any 300mm lithography tool on the market. The tool can process 150 200mm wafers per hour or 100 300mm wafers per hour. "We call it the highest productivity per square foot," said Peter Convertito, director of strategic marketing for SVG lithography. He noted that fab operators will be able to make the switch from 200mm to 300mm wafers without taking up extra floor spaceaa common demand among SVG's customers.

SVG also said that the ability to perform 193nm lithography can increase customers' throughput by reducing the need for phaseshifting. A company spokesman explained during a conference call Thursday that IC features could be produced with a 193nm tool and a binary photomask that would otherwise require phaseshiftingaand a second wafer exposureawith a 248nm tool. While not as important for semi manufacturers producing large volumes of ICs, the improved throughput becomes critical for chips made in small volumes such as ASICs.