IBM, Applied, UAlbany team for 22-nm work to be validated on finFETs

By combining Applied’s thin-film deposition and etch processing expertise and the university's fundamental science know-how with IBM’s capabilities, the partners believe they can extend modeling beyond lithography to help deliver a more complete and validated manufacturing process.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 2/24/2009

IBM Corp, Applied Materials Inc, and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany (UAlbany NanoCollege) today announced they will jointly develop process modeling technology for manufacturing 22-nm logic and memory chips.

The project aims to minimize process variation, reduce development cost, and improve time to market for 22-nm semiconductors, the partners said.

FinFETs (fin field effect transistors), considered by some to be a potential successor to conventional planar transistors for 22-nm chips, will be used to validate the technology, the trio said.

“To meet the challenges of 22 nm, we need to model the entire physical structure of the transistor, and this is now possible with the advent of ultra-powerful, petascale computer processing," said Gary Patton, VP of IBM's semiconductor research and development center, in a statement today. "By combining Applied’s thin-film deposition and etch processing expertise and CNSE’s fundamental science know-how with IBM’s capabilities, we can extend our modeling beyond lithography to help deliver a more complete and validated manufacturing process.”

The goal of the joint work is to develop computational models to perform most of these experiments in a “virtual” laboratory, greatly reducing the need for actual wafer processing, the partner said.

“The next big scaling challenge is to give these ultra-small transistors consistent geometry and electrical properties which define the speed, reliability and power consumption of a device,” said Hans Stork, group VP and CTO of Applied’s silicon systems group, in the statement. “The key to reducing this variability is to integrate and optimize every fabrication step to precisely construct and repeat the critical transistor geometry. By using Applied’s process knowledge to validate and refine IBM’s predictive modeling, we plan to bring this new technology to market in a shorter time, with less risk and at a lower development cost than traditional experimental methods.”

Applied said it has processing systems and technology expertise covering the additional steps that are to be included in the finFET model and made specific note of its Producer APF and Producer PECVD systems that will deposit the Advanced Patterning Film (APF), oxide and nitride hard mask layers, while its Applied Centura Enabler and AdvantEdge etch systems will offer closed-loop CD trim and etch rate and selectivity for profile control and CD uniformity.

This work is far from the first time IBM, Applied, and UAlbany have collaborated. The two companies have been working with UAlbany CNSE on various manufacturing and scaling projects since early in the decade. With their technologies and some hefty investments, the companies have helped make CNSE’s Albany NanoTech complex one of the most advanced university research enterprises of its kind with a $4.5 billion, 450,000-sq-foot complex.

“The UAlbany NanoCollege looks forward to building on our relationship with IBM and Applied Materials for the development of leading-edge process modeling methods that are critical for the development and manufacturing of 22-nm chips,” said Richard Brilla, VP for strategy, alliances, and consortia at CNSE, in the statement. “This collaboration will extend current research at CNSE’s Albany NanoTech to validate fundamental process modeling work for future technology nodes, accelerating the integration of advanced processing and innovative nanoelectronics research and development that is necessary for scaling amid the growing complexity of next-generation transistors.”

The research will be carried out primarily at CNSE’s Albany NanoTech Complex in Albany, where Applied has a suite of processing tools and a staff of engineers and scientists. Additional modeling and process characterization will be performed at IBM’s facilities in East Fishkill and Yorktown, NY, locations, Applied’s Maydan Technology Center in Sunnyvale, Calif, and the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.