Semiconductor Manufacturing

ORNL scientists are helping to improve the reliability of semiconductor manufacturing. A variety of techniques and hardware has been developed to diagnose and fingerprint the RF power delivery systems used in plasma processing of materials. Our approach has been used to determine process chamber variations in the manufacturing environment and to correlate process shifts to RF characteristics of the system, including the impedance of the chamber/plasma and harmonic frequency content. We are also leading an effort to develop industry Standards for the performance and testing of RF power delivery systems through SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) International Standards (www.semi.org).   Final Report on Wireless Wafer Proof-of-Principal What we typically do on a RF wafer fab visit

John Caughman applies RF power system experience in the microelectronics fab environment in partnership with International SeMaTech

GEC cell with modeled density profile overlay.

ORNL has been managing the Etch Chemistry and Diagnostics program for the International Sematech Corporation since 1997. This program employs resources from national labs, universities, and private industry to develop fundamental plasma chemistry databases, to make diagnostic measurements of the plasma etching process, and to advance the state of predictive modeling for dielectric etching in semiconductor manufacturing.   1999 AVS Invited Talk on Etch Chemistry Project at SEMATECH