- 22 May 2006 -

Macro defect inspection system as 'best of breed'

Rudolph Technologies, Inc. announced that two major US semiconductor manufacturers have designated Rudolph's all-surface, macro defect inspection system as 'best of breed'. In both cases, Rudolph systems were thoroughly evaluated in an actual process environment, and the top yield inhibitors were identified.

"As automated inspection has brought frontside macro defects under greater control, chip manufacturers have become aware of the increasing significance of defects on the edge and backside surfaces of the wafer," said Ardy Johnson, VP of marketing for Rudolph. "Our customers have documented significant reductions in defectivity and measurable increases in yield from the detection, correlation, diagnosis and correction of edge and backside defects in their most advanced processes."

"Yield managers have suspected that material was flaking from the edge and re-depositing on the frontside of the wafer," said Johnson. "All-surface inspection gives process engineers the ability to establish [the] root cause of the defect without employing additional, time-consuming inspection processes."

Rudolph's E25 (edge) and B20 (backside) Inspection Modules, combined with the AXi (frontside) Advanced Macro Inspection System, form an integrated all-surface solution that is the first to automatically detect, classify and correlate macro defects from the front, edge and backside of 200- and 300-mm wafers through multiple front-end processes, including deposition, lithography, etch and CMP. This integrated approach is uniquely capable of linking edge and backside "source" defects with frontside defects that can directly impact yield, without the increase in inspection time and analysis complexity that is associated with separate, standalone inspections.

"As a result of edge inspection, our all-surface customers are taking corrective actions that have reduced defects on the edge bevel and, in some cases, improved wafer final test yields by ten percent from the baseline," said Johnson. "Edge and backside defects pose unique challenges, and the key is being able to correlate data from all surfaces and all processes to extract significant, actionable information."

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