Bay-by-bay descriptions of equipment:
BAY 1:
- Class 100 clean room
- YELLOW ROOM for Standard photolithography with Karl Suss MA6 mask aligner
Equipment List:
- Karl Suss MA6 Mask Aligner: A Karl Suss mask aligner is used to align a photomask with a semiconductor wafer and expose it to UV light, transferring a pattern onto the wafer’s
photoresist. A semi-automated system handling wafers up to 6 inches, designed for fine lithography down to 1 micron. - Laurell Technologies WS-650MZ Series: It is a programmable bench-top spin coater. A spin coater works by rotating a substrate at controlled speeds to spread a liquid evenly across its surface using centrifugal force.
- Solitec 5110 series: The Solitec 5110 series is a line of manual and semi-automatic single-head photoresist spinners used for coating, developing, and scrubbing substrates in semiconductor and microelectronics fabrication. These systems are primarily designed for research and development (R&D) or low-volume production, offering high reliability and simplicity for the photolithography process. It can operate with small-sized samples and up to 4 inches.
- Veeco Dektak V220-Si stylus profilometer The Veeco Dektak V220-Si is a legacy contact-based stylus profilometer designed for high-precision 2D and 3D surface topography measurements, specifically optimized for semiconductor wafer metrology.
BAY 2:
Bay 2 is a Class 1000 clean room that houses the thin film deposition equipment, including the SFI Shamrock sputtering system and Denton Vacuum Explorer electron-beam evaporator.
- Denton Electron Beam Evaporator is a high-vacuum physical vapor deposition (PVD) system used to deposit ultra-pure thin films of metals and dielectrics. It functions by focusing a high-intensity electron beam onto a source material in a crucible, causing it to vaporize and coat a substrate in a vacuum environment. A versatile system optimized for R&D and pilot production. It typically features a six-pocket electron gun for sequential multi-layer deposition without breaking vacuum. It carries Ti, Al, Cr, Cu, SiO2 deposition with high quality and controllable deposition.
- SFI Shamrock sputtering system
SFI Shamrock system is an automated, high-vacuum cluster tool designed for the precision deposition of high-quality thin films. It is particularly recognized for its ability to deposit complex multi-layer structures like Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) and Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) stacks with exceptional repeatability.
Three-Chamber Cluster Design: Features a central transfer chamber (TM) that maintains a base pressure of approximately 10⁻⁷ Torr, connecting various process and loading modules. Load-Lock (LL): An automated loading chamber with 12 slots, allowing for high-throughput processing without venting the main process chamber to the atmosphere. Process Chamber (PM): A high-vacuum module reaching base pressures below 5 × 10⁻⁸ Torr. It is typically configured with multiple deposition sources. Capable of processing wafers up to 150 mm (6 inches) in diameter, as well as smaller pieces using specialized carriers. It carries 5 Five 3-inch DC Guns for metallic film deposition, and one 4-inch RF Gun for dielectric or insulating.
Other minor equipment:
- 6-8 inch tube flow furnace
- Nanometrics Nanospec 212 Film Thickness Measurement (left) and fixed ellipsometer (right)
BAY 3:
Bay 3 is a Class 1000 clean room that houses the various etching equipment include ST Systems Advanced Oxide Etcher, Intelvac ion mill with Veeco ion source, 4-Wave Ion Beam Etcher, and YES-
R3 plasma Asher.